


Road Trip

by Hazama_d20



Series: Three note chords [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: No Reality Trip, No Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazama_d20/pseuds/Hazama_d20
Summary: It's summer vacation! Time for Danny to finally get a break from school, and take a nice long vacation with his family.I'm certain that nothing bad is going to come out of this.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Sam Manson, Ember McLain & Danny Fenton, Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton, Sam Manson & Ember McLain
Series: Three note chords [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904782
Comments: 17
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of the previous fic, Talent Night. You don't NEED to read that to get everything that's going on in this, but you might have a few questions. 
> 
> Special thanks to [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) and [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime/) for beta reading and editing this!

Danny led the charge out of the school. "FREEDOM!" He shouted, sprinting out of the building. Sam and Tucker were close behind as he slid on the grass outside of the school and planted himself on the lawn. He pressed his forehead into the ground. "I'll never take you for granted again."

Sam scoffed. "Yeah, and how's that going to go when you go on your cross country trip in a few days?"

Danny groaned, and the tension holding him together deflated. He laid bonelessly on the ground. "You _ had _ to remind me. I couldn't have  _ five minutes _ without that hanging over my head?"

Sam smiled and pulled Danny up. "Sorry, Danny," she said, brushing some of the grass off of him. "But we should figure out what we're going to do about that."

Danny frowned and looked between her and Tucker. "What do you mean?"

Tucker held out his arms as if presenting a project. "Think about it, man, what do you think is going to happen if Daniel Fenton disappears for a few weeks and Danny Phantom doesn't show up?"

"Uh... nothing? Because why would that matter?"

Tucker elbowed Danny. "Well... considering Danny Phantom shows up pretty much daily to stop some ghost problem or another. Any day he doesn't is something that people notice, but if the Fenton's who hate him are gone, shouldn’t Phantom have free reign? And if he suddenly doesn't show up..."

A horn honked, and everyone, not just the isolated trio, looked up. Jazz waved from inside her car. The three of them casually walked over. Five feet from the car, Tucker shouted, "Shotgun!" before taking the front seat.

Danny waited for Sam to open the trunk to put their backpacks in it before they slid into the backseats. The two of them were buckled in before Tucker managed to get situated with his bag underneath his feet.

Tucker tried to give himself more room by sliding the chair back, but Sam pushed back on the chair. "Oh no, you don't," she stated, refusing to let herself get squished in the backseat. "You had your chance."

Tucker pouted and folded his arms. "Should have known better."

Jazz started the car and began backing out of the parking space. "So..." she began slowly. "What were you three talking about?"

"Nosy, aren't you?" Danny scoffed.

Jazz chuckled and responded, "Tucker and Sam had their Clueless Danny face on."

Danny frowned and let out a noise that was definitely not a whine no matter what anyone said. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Sam picked up on it immediately. "Danny didn't realize that Phantom being gone for several weeks the same time the Fentons are gone might raise questions."

"Oooh..." Jazz said, wincing. "Yeah, that's a fair point."

"No one expects Fenton to be Phantom, though!" Danny said, crossing his arms.

Jazz hummed. "That's also true. Correlation doesn't mean causation, but humans are hard-wired to look for patterns. It's why no one has really made the connection between you and Phantom yet. That and the uncanny valley."

"The what?"

"Uncanny valley?" Jazz repeated. "Didn't you listen to Dad's speech on it a few weeks ago?"

"Uh... was that the one I fell asleep after the third use of the word spook?"

Sam waved her arms in the back seat. "Uh... can you translate for those of us who, one, weren't forced to listen to a lecture from Jack Fenton, and two, can't understand him when we are forced to listen?"

Jazz flicked on her turn signal as she left the school. "Well, ghosts who come back don't really look like how they looked in life. Even the ones who still look mostly human - Ember, Kitty, and Johnny, for example - would be extremely difficult to identify if we put them side by side with their living counterparts. They don't look quite human."

"Yet, you still dated Johnny." Danny pointed out.

"Shush," Jazz responded with a pointed glare in the rear-view mirror. She looked back at the street and continued. "Anyways, even Phantom has a list of things that aren't quite right when you look at him."

"Like what?"

"Well, his pupils don't dilate for one. It's very minor, but it's something humans notice. His skin, and his suit actually, don't reflect light the way they should, beyond the glow I mean. Just minor things that you'd be hard-pressed to actually point out looking at him, but you subconsciously notice. Plus, the whole, you know, you have to be dead in order to become a ghost, and Danny is definitely living."

Tucker shifted and then pulled out his phone. "So you're saying that we don't need to be worried if Fenton and Phantom are gone for a few weeks?"

"Oh! Definitely not!" Jazz said, waving her hand back and forth. "If Danny is gone for a few weeks, and Phantom is missing, well, once might not be too bad, but it's a data point, and given enough data points... eventually people will draw the correct conclusion. Like I said, people look for patterns."

Sam leaned against the side of the car. "Well, I guess we're all on the same page, except Danny."

Danny folded his arms and huffed. "I still want to know about the Clueless Danny face."

Sam looked at Danny with a smirk. She folded her arms mirroring him and asked, "So what do we do about it?" Intentionally ignoring Danny’s comment.

"That's a good question," Jazz said, tapping her finger on the steering wheel. "It might work just fine if Danny flies back for a night while we're in Wisconsin? Menomonie isn't too far from Amity, so if Danny just does a patrol here, maybe that would be good enough?" Her voice lowered to a mumble as she thought about it.

"Maybe," Tucker offered. "But the phandom knows his top speed is 143 miles per hour."

Danny sputtered. "One, phandom? What? Why can I hear the ‘ph’ in that? Two, I thought my top speed was 112?"

Tucker handed Danny his phone. "You've gotten faster, and you have a fan page, dude."

"Oh my god..."

Sam grabbed the phone and looked at it. "Wow, the design is actually kind of nice. Who's in charge of it?"

"You're never gonna guess."

"Dash and Paulina?"

"How did you guess?" Tucker shouted.

The fifth passenger took the phone out of Sam's hands, "The hell is this? A fan site?"

Everyone jumped. The sudden intruder made Tucker scream, and Sam reached for a weapon, before her eyes widened in recognition. She reached past the newcomer and smacked Danny in his stomach. "Danny! What the hell? You have a literal ghost sense for this sort of thing! Warn someone!"

Danny groaned and rubbed his head, which he had hurt jumping and hitting his head on the roof of the car. "Sorry! Wait, Ember, how did you get past my ghost sense?"

Ember smirked. "I don't know, but as soon as I can do it consistently, you better watch out." She scrolled through the web site. "Huh, you can bench 30,000 pounds? Damn, never would have guessed."

"Oh, you got to the bus article, huh?" Tucker commented.

"Wait, I can bench a bus?"

"With kids in it. Does it count if we just make it ignore the laws of physics?" Ember mused. "Why are you guys looking at this anyways?"

"Uh... well-" Jazz began uncertainly.

Sam snapped her fingers. "Hey, Ember, how do you feel about doing a cross-country music tour?"

Ember's head immediately focused on Sam, focusing on her with no movement, like frames dropped from an animation. "What's the catch?"

"No catch, just no mind control." Sam began. "And you get to beat up Phantom."

"Where have you been my whole afterlife?"

"Wait, wait, wait." Danny began waving a hand between Ember and Sam.

Ember put a hand up and pushed Danny away without taking her eyes off Sam. "Shhh, cool people are talking, Baby Pop."

Sam smirked. "In two days, you should go to Menomonie Wisconsin and do a concert there. Be flashy, get yourself on the news. Phantom can show up a few hours after you start. The Fenton's will see that two of Amity's ghosts are over in Wisconsin, and now we have an excuse for Danny being gone while Phantom is gone."

"Oohhh..." Jazz said, pointing at Sam in the mirror. "Brilliant! The correlation isn't that Phantom is gone while Fenton is gone. It's that Fenton is gone while Phantom is gone!"

Sam smirked. "Exactly!” She frowned. “Though, will you be okay with that? I mean, this is you checking out colleges right?”

Jazz shrugged. “It’s fine. Keeping Danny’s secret is more important anyways.”

"Just to be clear, I get to beat up Phantom, right?" Ember asked.

"If everything goes right?" Tucker grinned. "On national TV."

Ember looked at Danny and smirked. "Oh, Baby Pop, if I had known being friends with you got me these kinds of nice perks, I would have done this ages ago!"

Danny groaned and put his face in his hands. "What even is my life?"

"Over," Tucker said with a shrug. "I mean, if you think about it."

Danny groaned, which resulted in Jazz snapping at him, "Hey, no existential crises when I don't have my notebook!"

Danny groaned harder.

* * *

Ember hummed a song to herself as she floated through the ghost zone. It’d been a while since she had visited this section. Twisting islands of sand stretched through the air in the zone. Waves were billowing across their surface as if a wind blew across their shifting shapes. 

It took her a few minutes, but she found what she was looking for by following the winds to their source. A bed of sand, nearly five hundred feet across, floated above a lamp, sand flowing up where the fire would be. A giant pile of sand sat in the center, slowly falling apart and sending trails of sand toward the edges of the platform. A giant Moorish castle was built on the mountain of sand, whose walls were slowly crumbling due to the sand falling. 

Ember flew up to the door of the castle and looked at the sculpted sand. She raised her hand to knock, but movement above her had her dodge on instinct. A pile of sand fell to the ground, narrowly missing her. “Yeah, no,” she said, taking a step back. 

“Desiree! You there? I need a favor!” Ember shouted at the top of her lungs. 

In response to Ember’s shout, the door collapsed. The sand fell away, joining the millions of grains that were slowly slipping away from the castle. Ember quickly walked through the door and made her way toward the center of the castle. She found Desiree curled up in a bed of real-world pillows. “Ember, what brings you to my lair?”

“Like I said out there, I need a favor.”

Desiree narrowed her eyes at Ember. “My lair is soft sand and is falling apart without me seeking more power to put into it. Sound does not carry here…”

Ember looked behind her, “Uh… so you didn’t open the door for me?”

“No.”

“Huh, awkward,” Ember mused. She shook her head. “Anyways, I need a favor, but I think you’ll like this. Need a wish granted.”

She scowled. “And just WHY should I grant you a wish? I’m not some pet that does tricks for accolades.”

Ember growled and ignored Desiree trying to insult her. “Oh, trust me, you’ll want to grant this one. It’s very much a case of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Desiree flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Fine then, just what is this you wish to pay me with?”

Ember waggled her finger and tisked. “Nuh-uh-uh. The wish itself will do it. Some nice information that’ll make your week.” 

Desiree stretched out over her bed of pillows, much like a cat. She looked down at her nails before sighing. “Fine, let’s hear this wish of yours.”

“I wish that while Phantom is out of town for the next two weeks, no one figures out his human identity,” Ember stated, throwing her hair over her shoulders. 

“As you wish it, so it shall be,” Desiree intoned, snapping her fingers, causing a cloud to appear and dissipate. She looked down her nose at Ember. “You may go now.”

“Thanks, babe,” Ember said, turning around and waving over her shoulder. “Have fun with that!”

Desiree watched Ember leave. “So… Phantom will be out of town for a week,” She purred to herself, “How interesting…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, not gonna lie, getting this out is gonna be a challenge. I had intended to take a break, get a bit of a buffer going so I can get this out in a reasonable amount of time with no delays, but then life reared it's shinny head and bit me. I developed extreme anxiety. (meds are working, but getting on them was NOT fun, but on the plus side, I now have a better idea on how to write some horror scenes later!) I got covid and some family members got covid. I also lost my job. (Not a big loss, don't work in a toxic environment kids, it'll kill you slowly.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Phantom now has a plan, so now it's time to enact it. 
> 
> You know what they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy, but Ember isn't an enemy anymore. Maybe things won't go sideways this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) and [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime). Aniura, for editing and giving me multiple existential crises, and HeroineOfTime, for editing and NOT giving me multiple existential crises.

Danny paused his packing to let out a sigh. Sam and Tucker stopped playing their games for a moment to look up at him. He threw the last of his clothes in a suitcase and slammed the lid shut. “Okay, guys, I need you to cover for me. Also, Sam, if this goes horribly wrong, I'm blaming you.”

Tucker pulled out his phone. “Wait, is Ember starting? I haven't had Twitter blow up on me yet.”

Danny pointed at the earbud in his left ear. “Jazz snuck Ember a Fenton phone, and she's cackling.” His face fell into a frown. “Yes, Ember, that was definitely a cackle.” He paused and then folded his arms. “You were doing the evil gasping and everything.” A moment later, he groaned. “Why do you even care if you are caught cackling? All the ghosts do it.” Danny tilted his head and fell deep into thought. “I'm torn. Either Plasmius or the Box Ghost have the worst ones, but for very different reasons.”

Sam smirked and held out her hand and made a 'gimme' motion. “Alright, well, we can hold down the fort for a couple hours, no worries. Just do your best to make the news.” Danny took out the Fenton phone and handed it to Sam. She looked at the ear wax on it and grimaced.

Danny took a deep breath and sighed. “Whelp, going ghost!” Sam flinched at the bright light that appeared around Danny's midsection and let out a slow breath as she adjusted to the chill in the room. Danny floated up in the air. “You guys sure that-”

“Danny, it's fine. We'll have to deal with this eventually anyways when you go somewhere else.” When he frowned, she shooed him off. “It's  _ fine _ ,” she stressed. “We're not Jazz. We can handle ourselves in a ghost fight.”

Danny ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his head. “Alright. Just... call me if something comes up?”

Tucker spun in his chair before propping his feet up on Danny's desk. “Relax, man, we've taken care of tons of ghosts without you before!”

“Really?”

Tucker shrugged. “Sure, there was that one time where we... uh...”

Sam folded her arms. “Tucker hasn't, but I dealt with Aragon and Dora well enough. Now start moving before I start figuring out how to exorcise you out of this house!”

Danny held up his hands. “Alright, alright. I'm out!” He said before flying out through the wall.

Tucker turned toward Sam. “So... do you actually know how to perform an exorcism?”

Sam stood up and made her way to Danny's suitcase. “Nope. I should probably learn, though.”

“Do they work?”

“Well, I can ask Danny's parents?” Sam said as she lifted the lid to Danny’s suitcase and counted how many shirts he had packed. Danny was going to be gone for two weeks. So he'd need fourteen shirts, plus a few extras in case something happened. She made her way to his closet and grabbed three shirts. “Can you get Danny's bathroom stuff?”

Tucker hopped off his chair and fired off a mock salute. “Yes, ma'am!”

Sam checked Danny's socks and underwear and found both sorely lacking. She sighed and rolled her eyes as she went to his underwear drawer and grabbed ten pairs, avoiding any of Tucker's or her own that they had left here for any of the nights they randomly stayed over. She smirked at the fact that half of the ones she grabbed were space-themed.

Tucker came back in with a small bag. “Should I be worried when I see you smiling at Danny's underwear?”

Sam rolled her eyes and put the underwear into the suitcase. “No. I was just laughing that you’re still wearing tighty whities.”

“Uh-huh... look, I know what people laughing look like, that was the 'oh my god, he's so cute!' look.” He folded his arms. “Besides, you gotta respect the classics.”

Sam rolled her eyes, before she smirked at Tucker, who placed a small bag into the suitcase. “Well, nothing saying it couldn't be both. You know? Like a puppy.”

“Sure... like a puppy,” Tucker repeated, giving her a significant look. “Cause Danny would look so good with a collar.”

Sam tilted her head. “You know, now that you mention it...”

“Oh god,” Tucker said, throwing his head into his hands. “ _Please_ no.”

“Yeah, probably a bad idea; he’d just slip it anyways,” Sam said, looking at the rest of Danny's clothes. He had two pairs of jeans in the suitcase, but he wore the same pair most days. Danny's pajamas were laid out next to the suitcase.

Sam knew Danny didn't actually like wearing them, it was too hot for him to really sleep comfortably. But after an event where he jumped out of bed to chase a ghost, and then getting caught outside the ghost shield his parents had turned on, he started using the fleecy PJs. He did not want to have to brave walking outside in his underwear again any time soon. 

She was still trying to find Danny something that worked better for him. Sam had dibs on the pajamas if he found something better. She could buy herself a pair, but it'd be a waste if Danny found something better on his own.

After ensuring that everything was all set, Sam closed the suitcase. “Alright, Tuck, ready to brave Danny's parents?”

Tucker looked up from his phone and narrowed his eyes. “Why do we need to brave them?”

“I was going to ask about the exorcism.”

“Wait! You were serious?”

Sam smirked. “Hey, what kind of goth would I be if I didn't know how to exorcise a ghost?”

Tucker held up a hand and started counting off on his fingers. “One, a normal one?”

“So, boring.”

“Two, can you really exorcise a ghost? I thought that was for demons.”

“Let's ask!” Sam said, going out the door. She led the way down into the living room. “Mrs. Fenton?” she called out.

“Down in the lab, sweetie!” Maddie shouted. Sam made her way down into the lab and hung out by the stairs. “Hey there, Sam, Danny kick you out to pack his underwear away?”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you know how Danny is,” she lied smoothly. “It's not like it's something everyone has or anything.”

Tucker laughed and nudged Sam. “Hey, I don't blame him! It's embarrassing! Some stuff should be left private!”

Sam scoffed. “What are you guys going to do when you get girlfriends who need you to run and pick up their tampons or pads?”

“Man up, get in the car, cry from embarrassment, and pick them up and get chocolate.”

Maddie chuckled. “Ah, the Fenton way.” She turned toward the teens. “You two usually don't come down here. Danny taking longer than usual to pack?“

“Nah,” Sam said, waving it off. “I was just wondering, can you perform an exorcism on a ghost? And if so, how do you do it?”

Maddie frowned. “You should never try to exorcise a ghost the old fashioned way. If it's got a stronger will than you, it can hurt you, maybe even kill you.” She reached over and grabbed a Fenton thermos. “These can be used to capture a ghost and take them away from a location.” She clicked her tongue. “If only we could replicate the orgone that Phantom used to kick start the containment device...”

Tucker tilted his head. “Orgone?”

Maddie tapped her forehead. “Ah, right, you are more into... antiquated... science.” She tapped her lips a few times, ignoring the flat look Tucker gave her. “Orgone is a supposed... ah... let's call it life energy.”

Sam rolled her eyes at Maddie’s condescending tone. “By life energy, do you mean sexu-?”

“Life energy.” Maddie insisted, cutting her off with a flustered wave of her hand. Sam snickered. “It's the life energy that exists in the world. Ghosts have an abundance of this energy. If you think of ectoplasm as their bodies, orgone would be what made up their nervous system, if they actually had thoughts.”

Sam ignored the last comment. “So... Phantom put some of this... life energy... into the thermos and made it work?”

“Yeah, he seems to have done that with quite a few of our inventions.” Maddie folded her arms across her chest. “If it weren't for the fact that we can get distinct readings of orgone from him, which we've never been able to get before, Jack and I would consider running the ghost shield 24/7, but the data is just too valuable!”

Sam glanced at Tucker. “So, let's say I don't have a thermos jump-started by Phantom. How do I exorcise a ghost?”

Maddie let out a hum. “I suppose if you don't have any tech on hand, the old ways would help. Well, I hope you have notebooks, this will take a few hours. But, you have to listen to the end; I don't want you doing an exorcism halfway and only angering the spirit!”

Tucker smiled. “Don't worry, Misses F. I have a notepad right here!” he said, waving his phone about.

* * *

Danny heard Ember's concert long before he got there. Ember definitely had gone above and beyond what she needed to do in order to get people's attention. By the time he made it to her show, the college campus was packed. School was out, but somehow she had managed to draw a big enough crowd that it was visible six hundred feet from the air. As he flew down, he began to notice that on the outskirts of the gathering there were several police cars.

When Danny got closer, he could see that there was an effort to try and shut down the concert. Ember must have had a thousand people all chanting: “OH, no! We won't go!” Everyone was shouting, and Danny could hear it hundreds of feet in the air. The number of noise complaints being reported must have been ridiculous.

Danny flew over the police officers. “Sorry about this!” he said. The Wisconsin police officer's eyes went wide at seeing the ghost floating over them. “I'll get her out of here.”

“Uhhhh... what the hell?” they said, looking at each other and then back towards someone else. “You recording this?”

Danny turned and saw two people behind him. One had an enormous camera with a giant channel 15 logo. The two of them were standing slack-jawed at Danny. “Uh, yeah, we're... we're live...”

Danny smirked.  _ Well,  _ Danny thought to himself,  _ we wanted to get me seen on the news, so that's one thing down.  _ He floated up slightly and waved. “What's wrong? You guys look like you've seen a ghost.” He chuckled.

The officer with a bit of grey showing on his sideburns adjusted his hat and scoffed. “Well, forgive us for not knowing how to react to seeing a floating teenager in some weird superhero pajamas.”

Danny folded his arms. “Excuse me, it's a hazmat suit.”

“And why are you floating around in a hazmat suit?”

Danny shrugged. “It's what I died in, of course.” Danny turned toward the crowd, which had stopped chanting. “Wait, did everyone actually stop chanting ‘cause of that?”

“Phantom!” Ember shouted from her stage. “You're stealing my spotlight!”

Danny floated over. “Ember, you're a ways away from home.”

Ember shifted back defensively. She glared at him and gritted her teeth. She struck a chord, and the air exploded in front of her. “Yeah, well... you keep ruining my concerts back home, so I had to branch out a bit!”

There was a bite in her words that made Danny hesitate. He floated back a bit, putting some space between him and Ember. She hunched over her guitar, and her hair rose and fluttered in the wind. She looked like a cat trying to make itself look bigger to defend itself. He clenched a fist at his side. “Yeah, well, you know, hypnotizing people isn't something I'm gonna let you do.”

She scoffed and ran her fingers down the neck of her guitar. “Yeah? And what about now? I'm not making anyone sing and dance. It’s all them.” A strum and flames appeared beneath her, but nothing else happened.

Danny raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And what about the noise complaints?”

“It's a free country.”

“You still need a permit.”

“You seriously busting my fine ass for this, Phantom?”

Danny titled his head. “Uh... yeah? I'm kinda one of the only people who can deal with ghosts.”

Ember's eyes narrowed. She glanced at the news crew and then back at Phantom. “And which one of us died and put you in charge? It isn’t your problem.”

Danny folded his arms and put a lot of effort into not looking at the news crew. Silently he thanked Ember. Letting the fact out he was still human was definitely not something he wanted to do, and Ember covered him. “Yeah, well, I still remember what it's like to be human.”

Ember winced and looked up at Danny. Her eyes glossed, and her banter came out as a weak whisper. “That doesn’t make you special.”

Danny had barely heard it, but he did. He’d obviously struck a nerve. He looked down at the ground. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, me too...” She strummed a power chord and nearly sent Danny out of the air. “So why don't you just back off! And let me play in peace!”

Danny recovered and folded his arms. “You know I can't!”

Ember growled and let out a scream of rage. “Just try and stop me!” The flames on the stage exploded. Fireballs went flying at Danny. The crowd began to scream, not in terror but awe as Ember started to play a guitar solo sending even more flames up towards Danny.

Danny let out a yelp as Ember attacked him. After dodging a series of fireballs, he let out a breath he wasn't aware he was holding. Now that he was in the flow of fighting, his movements felt effortless. The hesitation he felt before the fight was gone.

He blinked, and suddenly Ember was in front of him. Their eyes met in a moment of hesitation. She let out a growl and swung her guitar at Danny. The guitar swung over his head, missing by a mile. He risked glancing up, and realized she missed intentionally. 

This was gonna be harder than he thought.

Fighting her without really fighting her was going to be hard. Making it look real for the news crew was going to be harder. Danny swung a glowing fist, telegraphing the punch so she could dodge. She dodged and narrowed her eyes. She slammed on her guitar. The sound wave exploded and knocked Danny to the ground. The next moment she was picking him up.

“What's the matter, Baby Pop?” she growled. “Scared to hurt little old me?”

Danny narrowed his eyes and grabbed her wrist. He wasn't a black belt like his mother, but he had learned a few things. He tossed her to the ground, put a knee on her shoulder, and with his free hand he reached for his thermos.

Ember grunted and smirked. “Oh, and now you're getting handsy?”

Danny spluttered and stepped away. Ember laughed and turned invisible. Danny facepalmed. “Great job, Phantom, you had her, and then you let her slip through your fingers,” he muttered.

He shuddered. A wisp of cold air left his mouth. He turned and saw Ember floating in the air. She was leaning back like she was lounging. “You know, you usually put up a better fight than this.”

Danny narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, well...” He remembered her joke and felt his face flush.

Ember cackled. “Oh, this is  _ too  _ good.” She strummed a chord and knocked Danny to the ground. “You're gonna have to get a thicker skin if you're gonna want to stop me!”

She flew up into the air and held her fist up in the air. “Alright, everybody! Love the enthusiasm, but the fuzz is beginning to show up! Scatter!” She brought her fist down across the strings of her guitar. This time it was less like an explosion and more like a flashbang.

Danny blinked a couple of times, surprised that he wasn't blinded. He looked about and saw that the only ones who were blinded were the police and the newscasters. He went invisible and flew up into the air. “Who actually calls them the fuzz?”

He hesitated a moment before remembering that Ember could teleport. Satisfied with their show, he started flying back home. When he reached cruising altitude, he turned and started flying with his back to the ground so he could look up at the sky. His eyes traced the path of the space station as it flew by.

“Think we did good enough?”

Danny lost his transformation for a brief second and fell fifty feet in the air before going ghost again and rising back to his normal cruising altitude. “Ember!” he shouted. “Warn a guy! How are you getting past my ghost sense?”

Ember shrugged. “Dunno. If I figure it out, though, you're gonna have to have one hell of a bribe before I tell the Box Ghost.”

“You're evil.”

“So your parents say,” Ember said, sticking her tongue out. “I'm the bad bitch your mom warned you about.”

Danny blinked and shrugged. “I mean... she did tell me to watch out for ghosts, so...” He slowly began flying, and Ember matched his pace.

Once they were at full speed again, Ember turned back toward Danny. “So, good enough?”

Danny thought for a moment. “Probably. They were filming live.”

“Awesome!” Danny turned and looked back at the night sky again. Ember followed his gaze and frowned. “What are you looking at?”

Danny pointed up. “See that smudge in the sky there? That's the Andromeda galaxy. We're far enough away from the city now it's beginning to show in the sky. It's the closest neighbor we have, and it's 2.5 million light-years away. Back home, we can't see it, but out here, this high up, and this far away from any city? You can just barely see it.”

Ember looked up at the sky, then back at Danny. “You're a dork.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a rough one. It went through several iterations and even then I wasn't very happy with it. I showed it to aniura and she got it polished up into a state I actually liked it. So huge shout outs to her. 
> 
> That being said, her editing this was a real eye-opener. 
> 
> Aniura: "Wow, Ember is really flirting with Danny in this chapter."  
> Me: "She is?"  
> Aniura: "Uhhh... yeah?" proceeds to point to two instances of flirting I didn't intend.  
> Me: "What?" *has flashbacks to college.* "WHAT?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a promise is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, this was beta'd by [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) and [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime). They are what's making this readible.

Danny's suitcase was a lot heavier than he expected. Sam and Tucker told him that everything he needed was in it, so he was probably going to have a really bad trip before they stepped in. Danny, with a bit of help from his ghost side, threw his bag into the back of the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle. “All set!” he shouted, reaching up to close the back of the modified van.

Jack reached up and held the door open. “Just one second!”

Jazz leapt from her spot inside the GAV over Danny. The result of her acrobatics put her square between Danny and her father. “No!” She shouted, throwing her arms out to bar him access to the vehicle. 

Jack held up his hands. “What? I haven't said what I was putting back there!”

Jazz crossed her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Does it at all include any technology prefaced with 'Fenton,' or anything else that could be used to hunt and identify ghosts?”

Jack sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. “Jazzy-pants, you never know-”

Jazz stomped her foot. “No!” She reached up to pull her hair in frustration before all the steam went out of her. “Dad... I just want one family trip not around ghosts. I know we can't get away from it, not really, but... this is one of the last things I'm going to be able to do as a family with all of us. Can I please have this one thing?”

Jack let out a sigh. “Alright Jazz, we won't bring any extra ghost hunting equipment.” He crossed his fingers over his chest. “I promise or I'll become a ghost!”

Jazz smiled and got up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around her dad's neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad.”

She turned and smiled at Danny before turning around the side of the car. The two of them clamored into the modified RV, then fought for a moment for a chair that had a window instead of a set of ghost hunting equipment. Danny was about to win the fight when Jazz managed to use some of the martial arts she knew to shift Danny and plant her butt in the seat. “Ha! I win!”

Danny frowned and sat down in the other seat. “Only ‘cause I let you.”

Jazz stuck her tongue out at him. “Sore loser!”

Jack and Maddie got into the front seats, Maddie taking the wheel. They were driving outside of their hometown, and while Amity Park was okay with Jack's reckless driving, the rest of the world was not.

“Buckle up, sweeties!” Maddie called out as she started the vehicle.

Jazz buckled up immediately and then turned to Danny. “So!”

Danny glanced at Jazz. “So...” he drawled.

Jazz clapped her hands. “We have seven hours before we get to our hotel.”

“I'm  _ well  _ aware.” Danny grimaced. He leaned back and rubbed his eyes.

Jazz reached behind him and started rummaging in the bags. “Well, the two of us haven't had a chance to do anything together in a long time, and Sam told me what you guys got at the mall the other day.”

Danny blinked. “What are you talking about?”

Jazz pulled out a box and handed it to Danny. “It's an early birthday present!”

Danny raised an eyebrow and opened the box. He smiled. “A Switch? I don't have that much free time...”

Jazz giggled and pulled out her own Switch. “You got seven hours in the car today, and another seven the day after. Nothing but you, me, and no ghosts.” She waved it about. “I bought us both several games, and preloaded them onto your Switch. So... what do you say? Think you can take me in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate?”

“You bet I can,” Danny said, booting up the Switch. “And you can just say ‘Smash.’”

* * *

“Jazz, I swear! If you don't stop eating me and throwing me off the edge-!”

“If it works! It works!”

“When's my turn?” Jack asked, looking back. “I heard there's a ghost hunter in that game!”

“He's a vampire hunter,” Danny stated.

“Awww... that's lame.”

Maddie shouted over all of them. “Don't make me pull over, you three!”

Jack turned to her, affronted. “What did I do?”

* * *

“Okay! Okay!” Jazz groaned. “Fine, Dad, here, you can play for a bit!”

“Yes! Haha! Beware of Jack Fenton!” he shouted, taking Jazz's game. “Uh... how do I play this one?”

“You search the house for ghosts, stun them with the flashlight-” She reached over and pointed at a button. “-by pressing this, then you press this button, and try to capture them.”

“Ah! I see!” He took one second. “Hey! This is plagiarism! They stole our idea of the Fenton Vacuum!”

Danny glanced at Jazz, before asking, “Dad... what’s the last movie you’ve seen?”

* * *

“Mom!” Danny shouted. “Can you  _ please _ put the Switch down now!”

“Just a few more minutes dear. I want to finish setting up this house!”

“Please! I want to make it to college in one piece!” Jazz cried, her knuckles turning white as she gripped onto the sides of her chair.

“I don't get it! Why is everyone else driving on the wrong side of the road?”

“Dad! You are!”

* * *

The Fenton family pulled into a gas station in a small town. Before the car was even stopped, the doors popped open and Danny and Jazz stepped out. “Ugh! Finally!” Danny said, stretching for a good minute. “I swear if we were in there any longer, I would have screamed.”

“We have been on the road a while,” Jazz said, following her brother's example and stretching. She looked around as her dad began to pump gas into the vehicle. “I thought this thing ran on its own energy?”

Maddie stepped out as well. “It does sweetie, but it needs to pull ecto-energy from somewhere, and most of the world doesn't have as much as Amity Park. There is a reason we live there after all.”

“Oh.”

Maddie reached into her purse and pulled out a wad of cash. “Here, kids,” she said, handing the cash over to the two of them. “Why don't you two grab something from the store and take a walk around?”

“It doesn't take that long to fill up, does it?” Danny asked, though he still took the money.

“Oh, no, but you see that building over there?” Maddie pointed. It wasn't hard to miss; it was the only five story building around. “That's our hotel for tonight, and that over there is the college Jazz wanted to look at.”

“Oh! We're here already?” Jazz asked. She looked at her watch. “We're an hour early!”

“Your dad made good time.”

“You mean he has a lead foot.”

“That he does.”

Danny walked into the gas station and immediately asked, “Bathrooms?”

The man behind the register pointed to a corner of the station. “Over there.”

“Thanks!” he said, speed-walking over and using intangibility to cut a few corners before getting into the bathroom. 

On the way out, he paused and looked at the back of the bathroom door. In a poster as tall as him was an advertisement for a local attraction. Specifically a haunted house. Danny glared at the poster as if it offended him.

He let out a quiet sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I really can't get away from this, can I?”

He opened the door, automatically unlocking it. As soon as the lock clicked, it was pushed in. Danny looked up at his Dad with a typical panicked look on his face. “Need the lil-ghost hunters room!” he said, rushing past him and gently, but firmly, pushing Danny out of the single bathroom.

Danny shook his head and sighed. He couldn't actually blame his dad for that one. They  _ had _ been on the road a while. Still was a bit embarrassing though. He left the corner of the gas station and went through the snack section of the convenience store. He grabbed a bag of Skittles before going over to the drinks and grabbed several energy drinks.

He put the drinks on the counter along with the bag as Jazz came up behind him. “You grabbing all of us energy drinks?” Jazz asked, eyeing the cans.

“Nope,” Danny said, smirking as he paid the cashier. He popped the tab of one of the cans as Jazz's items were scanned. By the time Jazz’s second item was scanned, Danny had drained his drink.

The cashier raised an eyebrow at Danny. “Shit kid... that might actually kill you.”

Danny shrugged. “I'll be fine.”

“Uhh.... these actually do have a warning on them.”

Jazz put her hands on her hips. “Danny...”

Danny smirked. “Relax, Jazz, it's not like  _ this _ is gonna kill me...” He turned to the cashier. “By the way, that ghost house you're advertising in the bathrooms...”

Jazz flicked Danny on the forehead. “No!”

“The place is real,” the cashier said with a shrug, “if that's what you're gonna ask. Last year there was a freshman dare to spend a night in the building. All of them had something happen to them.”

“Like what?” Danny couldn't help but ask.

“Danny, please?” Jazz pleaded quietly.

Danny turned to Jazz and saw the look on her face. She wouldn't look at him. Instead she stared at her fingers as she picked at the hem of her sweater. He turned back to the cashier. “Never mind. Please don't answer.”

“Thank you,” Jazz said, reaching over and hugging her brother.

The cashier looked between them. “Umm... okay? Everything alright?”

The two Fenton children jumped when Jack came up behind them and clapped them on the back. “Alright, kids! Your mother and I will take the Ghost Assault Vehicle to the hotel and set up the anti-ghost shields. Make sure you two have specter deflectors on you at all times. There are ghosts in this town, I can feel it deep within my bones. Those ectoplasmic freaks should know better than to mess with a Fenton, but you can never be too careful! I'll see you kids later!”

The doorbell rang as Jack left. The cashier blinked a few times as the door closed before turning to face Danny and Jazz. “Never mind,” he said. “I hope you enjoy your time here.”

Jazz smiled and brushed some hair behind her ear. “Thanks!”

Danny held up the other energy drink and popped the tab. “Thanks! Have a nice day.”

“Seriously, kid, that stuff might actually kill you.”

“Don't worry, I'm already halfway there.”

Jazz shoved Danny toward the door. “Danny! Don't joke about that!”

The two of them stepped outside and stared at the Fenton GAV. Danny took a long sip from his drink before phasing out a few Skittles and popping them in his mouth. “So...” he began. He glanced up at Jazz. “Do you want to continue sticking around them or-”

“Nope!” Jazz said, grabbing Danny's arm and dragging him away from the car. “I've had enough ghosts for the day.”

Danny placed a hand over his heart as he began to levitate so she wasn't dragging his entire weight. “Jazz! That could you say something like that to your own little brother!”

“You're only half of one, you don't count.”

“Still hurts. You don't accept all of me?”

“Don't make me have a therapy session!”

“I thought you loved me!”

“I do, that's why I make you sit down and talk about your feelings.”

“Ew.”

* * *

A few hours later, after a long walk without parents, followed by a good meal with the elder Fenton’s, Jazz walked out of the bathroom and sat down on her bed. “Well, bathroom's open,” she said as steam poured out of the room.

Danny turned toward the bathroom and made a face. “I'll wait. Bit too hot in there for my liking,” he said. He instead got more comfortable and went back to playing with his new gaming system.

“Say what you want about the rest of your ghost powers; the fact that you can get away with a lukewarm shower is a big plus,” Jazz said, finishing toweling off her hair. She looked at the wall separating their room from their parents’. “Have you heard from Mom and Dad since we got done with dinner?”

Danny shook his head. “No. I haven't.” The sounds from his system stopped as he paused the game. “Actually, now that you mention that, that  _ is _ weird. They're usually in bed by now, and they're not.”

“You can tell?” Jazz asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Say what you want about the rest of my ghost powers, but the improved hearing is a big minus, and these walls are kind of thin.”

Jazz blinked for a moment. “That doesn't sound too bad.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Danny said sarcastically. “I'm sure you'd be happy to know our parents still have a  _ very  _ loving relationship.”

“Danny! There are things I DON'T need to know!”

“Aw, but Jazz, you know EVERYTHING don't you!” Danny said, snickering. Jazz grabbed one of half a dozen hotel pillows and threw it at Danny. He went intangible as it went at him and flew across the room.

She folded her arms. “Ghost powers are cheating.” She looked back at their parents’ wall and chewed on her lip.

Danny raised an eyebrow at her. “You okay?”

Jazz shook her head. “I dunno, didn't they feel off to you at dinner?”

Danny thought for a moment. He didn't recall anything but on the other hand... 

Danny gulped, trying not to let his imagination run wild. “You want me to check on them?”

“Please?”

Danny sighed and stood up. He walked over to the wall and turned invisible before stepping through it. Danny blinked as he looked about. “Whoa,” he said, flicking on the lights. The room looked like a whirlwind had gone through it. Suitcases left open on the bed, clothing thrown about the room. He narrowed his eyes and looked about. It couldn't have been a ghost attack; they had all gone back to their rooms at the same time. And this close, his ghost sense would have gone off.

‘Course, Ember recently managed to sneak by it.

With that thought in mind, he started scouring the room. As he surveyed it, he grew more confident that it couldn’t possibly be a ghost attack. There was no way his parents would get taken without a fight. They had a million and one gadgets on them at any given time to fight a ghost.

There weren't any signs of ectoblasts. So it didn't seem like they had blasted whatever had happened. Danny turned toward the curtains and began walking over to the window. Perhaps he'd find something on the window itself?

Danny opened the curtains and stared out at the ground. Nothing immediately stood out, but after a second glance he realized that the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle wasn't there anymore. He wondered if his parents started looking for something and realized they may have left it somewhere. It must have been important. He turned back toward the rest of the room to go tell Jazz they were gone.

Once he had turned around, the light from the parking lot reflected perfectly into his eyes; reflected from a simple brochure. 

He blinked and walked over to it and picked it up. “Oh no...” he said as he looked at the paper.

The heading on the paper was garish and bold, a bright green made to look like dripping ectoplasm. He thought back and remembered seeing this at the gas station. He opened up the brochure and saw the address of the location, along with a map.

Haunted House Tour.

_ Knock knock knock. _

“Danny?” Jazz called out from the other side. “Everything okay?”

Danny jumped through the wall and turned toward Jazz. He hid the brochure behind his back. “Their room is a mess. It kind of looks like they left in a hurry. I think I'm gonna go look for them.” He transformed into Phantom and floated off the ground. “Will you be okay?”

Jazz frowned. “I packed a Fenton Specter Deflector, so I'll be safe. You take care of yourself, little brother.”

Danny nodded. “Good, I'll be back soon!” he said, turning invisible and flying out of the hotel room. He floated up into the air high enough he could see the layout of the roads nearby. He pulled out the map and glanced at it. 

“Please tell me you guys didn't.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You should only make a promise if you intend to keep it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Danny learns what his parents have been up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) and [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime). The initial reaction to this chapter was, "Did you write this while drunk?" The two of them made this read so much better. Also thanks to [ayamari_no_goshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayamari_no_goshi/pseuds/ayamari_no_goshi) for giving me some advice and ideas on more classical ghost hunting.

Sam’s phone beeped on the desk, pulling her out of her thoughts. And she had  _ just  _ been about to piece together the correct wording for her thesis statement. She read the message and growled in disgust. The environmentalist group she was a part of heard that the mayor planned to sell a portion of the public park to an investment firm that intended to open up another mall. 

Sam glanced back at her notebook and shook her head. With a snap of her wrist, she threw her pencil across the room. It bounced off the wall and landed on the keys of her electric keyboard, which emitted a tiny cacophony. She wasn’t going to make any more progress on this essay now. Honestly, writing this was already a chore. Any essay on colonial America was boring, made worse by the fact that their teacher was a bit of an apologist and didn’t approve of Sam calling out bad behaviors of historical figures. Which made writing for them harder, since she had to be absolutely perfect in her arguments unless she wanted her teacher to tear her essay apart. 

She put aside her notebook for now. She didn’t have any desire to do homework right now. Especially since without Danny around, the ghosts were out in full force. Her parents had actually asked for the Fentons’ cell phone numbers. They were extremely unhappy to hear that ALL the Fentons were gone. 

Sam shivered, as the temperature in the room suddenly plummeted. Immediately, she sat up and grabbed an ecto-gun from under her pillow. She flicked off the safety and glanced about the room. 

“Geez, girl, if this is how you treat your guests, then no wonder you only have Baby Pop and the nerd as friends.” 

Sam glanced about the room. “Ember?” she called out. She pointed the gun at the floor, leaving the safety on.

Ember appeared, floating above her desk. She lounged in the air as if she were laid out on a couch. Her guitar sat across her hips and she languidly plucked at the strings. “The one and only!” 

Sam rolled her eyes and grabbed her Fenton Phones. She may have been warming up to Ember, but getting mind-controlled wasn’t something she wanted to risk. She put them on and then turned to the ghost. “What are you doing here?”

Ember threw her hands up in the air. “I’m BORED!” she lamented and then rolled over to face Sam. She kept her guitar from falling by holding onto its neck. She focused her gaze on Sam and played with the strap of the guitar as it hung loosely by her chest. “I was doing that concert the other day, and I ran off like you guys wanted, but I want  _ more _ ! I want to do it again!” 

Sam blinked. “Oh… your obsession.” Ember glared at her, and Sam held out her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of that when I suggested this.”

Ember’s eyes softened. “Don’t worry about it,” she whispered quietly. 

Sam put down the gun and walked over to the desk. Ember floated away and Sam sat on her desk. “Still, I never considered that tearing you away from that would hurt.”

Ember shrugged, the casual movement making her hair fall away from her shoulders. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. I guess you guys know less about us than I thought.” Ember looked at the electric keyboard that sat on the floor. “I didn’t know you played.”

“Not very well,” Sam admitted. “I experimented with putting music to my poetry-”

Ember sat up, putting her face right up to Sam’s. “You write songs?” she shouted. 

Same held up her hands. “Whoa there, hold your horses! I don’t write songs.” She shrugged. “I just… I do poetry readings at the book shop, and I thought about trying to make some music to go with it.”

Ember grabbed Sam’s hands and pulled her down to the keyboard. “That’s writing songs! Come on! Show me!”

Sam sighed. “Alright, just… don’t judge me, alright? I’m not as good as you.”

“Of course not!” Ember shouted, sitting on the floor next to her. “Now quit stalling!”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Alright, but only cause I know otherwise you won’t leave me alone.” Sam picked up the keyboard and began to play. Dissonant tones echoed in the room, drawing forth a tension as Sam began to recite. 

Her voice echoed in the room and she tried to focus on her fingers pressing on the keys at the right times, instead of the harsh unblinking stare of the ghost in the room. Ember floated close enough to her that the chill that emanated off of the ghost gave her goosebumps. 

Still, it was something that Sam practiced often. She had practiced this poem a thousand times in the mirror, and a hundred more with the keyboard in front of her. It was easy to recite this one poem for Ember. 

As the final note faded into silence, Ember laughed and clapped her hands. “Not bad! Not bad at all!” 

Sam blushed, not expecting the praise. “Really? You think so? I don’t think it’s very good at all.”

Ember waved it off. “No! It’s awesome! You did a good job setting the tone. It’s not something that’d be on a record label, but who gives a shit about that? It’s unique! Unique is good! I love it!”

Sam smiled despite herself. Hearing that from Ember filled her with pride, she always liked being different. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Ember floated around Sam and leaned against her as she brought her guitar around. “Play it again!”

Sam scoffed. “Bossy much?”

“So I’ve been told. Now chop chop!” 

Sam rolled her eyes but obliged her, and began to play. Sam opened her mouth to repeat the poem – when Ember began to sing. Sam stopped playing and turned toward Ember as her jaw dropped. Ember glared back in response. “Who said you should stop? Come on! Let’s do this!”

Sam worked her jaw for a moment, before chuckling. “Alright. You’re the musician here.”

“You know it!”

Sam began to play again, from the top, and Ember sang the poem Sam had written. Sam didn’t know which was more shocking – that Ember remembered her poem after just one recital or how haunting her poem sounded when it spilled from the ghost’s lips. When Ember added some tones from her guitar, Sam felt a shiver run up her spine. 

When the two of them finished, Sam turned toward Ember. “That… was awesome!”

Ember winked at her. “Told ya!”

The door rattled as someone tried to open it, but was stopped by the lock. They then pounded against the door to Sam’s room. “Sammy-kins! Can you stop making that racket? It’s dreadful!” 

Sam rolled her eyes. “Mom! I’m practicing for my gothic poetry slam!” 

“I know dear, but… can’t you try and play that Bach piece your piano teacher showed you? Why are we even paying for lessons if you can’t play real songs?” 

Sam scoffed as Ember leaned over the keyboard. “Got any more?” Ember whispered so Sam’s mom couldn’t hear. “Preferably something that’ll turn her grey!”

Sam laughed. “You know… may-” Sam’s phone went off again. She frowned and picked up her phone, even as Ember growled in annoyance. Ignoring the ghost, who crossed her arms with an additional dramatic huff, Sam began to type out a response. 

After smashing the “send” button, Sam waved her phone in the air. “I’m only asking to be polite, I already know the answer.” 

Ember raised an eyebrow at the vague statement. Sam smirked. “How do you feel about doing a concert for an environmental protest?”

Ember’s eyes went wide as she circled around Sam. “Seriously, where have you been my whole afterlife?” She leaned over Sam’s shoulders, even as the goth frowned. “Uhh… that being said… is that Valerie gonna try to take me out? And not in the fun way.”

Sam waggled the phone in her hands once again. “Not if we get you a permit.”   


* * *

Danny curved in the air and began to dive-bomb toward a building on the outskirts of town. The street lamps weren't functioning near the building, casting a dark patch over the area. Getting closer, he could see the lights of the GAV.

Danny floated in the sky for a moment. “Dad, you promised Jazz...” He flew down slowly, approaching the house and phasing through the walls. 

He stopped dead in his tracks at the sound of movement, turning invisible on instinct. Immediately, his ghost sense went off.

“Sarah Palmer, are you there? Can you speak to me?” 

_ Was that… Dad?  _ he wondered to himself. Danny floated through the house, following the booming voice. “Sarah Palmer, can you hear me?”

“Anything, Jack?” his mom called out. Danny resisted the urge to groan. They were  _ both  _ going against Jazz’s wishes? Seriously?

“Let me check,” Jack said. Danny stuck his head through a wall to see his Dad leaving a room, holding something small in his hands. Invisible, Danny followed his dad into the hallway to get a closer look. A tape recorder; old school stuff that couldn’t pick him up. His dad rewound the tape and hit play.

“Sarah Palmer, are you there?” his dad’s voice asked, distorted slightly by static. “Can you speak to me? Sarah Palmer, can you hear me?”

Immediately after, a new voice jumped in. “Yes.”

Then his mother's voice came through. “Anythi-” before the recorder clicked off.

“Did you hear that, Maddie! It’s an EVP phenomenon!!” Jack shouted. Taking care to stay invisible, Danny quickly followed his dad as he ran through the house to Maddie, who was sitting down in front of a laptop.

“I heard it perfectly!” Maddie said, smiling. She indicated the laptops. “Nothing is showing up on the motion detectors yet. I’m guessing this entity isn’t even at a rating of one.”

Jack let out a hum and held his chin in his hands. “Well, we could try to draw it out a bit more… but it  _ is  _ getting late.”

Maddie nodded. “Maybe it’s camera shy?”

Jack gave her a thumbs up. “Mirror photography?” 

Maddie nodded and walked out of the house. Danny felt a chill and turned back. The room his dad had come out of seemed to grow darker. Danny floated over, still invisible and stuck his head in through the doorway. 

It was a simple bathroom. There was a porcelain bathtub in one corner, a toilet next to it, and a sink across from that. The only light in the room came from a small window slightly above him. Danny floated in and slowly turned as he kept an eye out. The chill in his chest ached. Like he had something stuck in his throat. 

“Jack?” Danny heard his mom call out. “Can you help me with this?”

“Coming, Mads!”

Danny turned toward the sound when something caught his eye in the mirror. At first he thought he had gone visible, but then he realized the figure in the mirror was a woman. 

And even though she had no eyes, he could tell she was looking right at him.

Just as quickly as he noticed her, she disappeared. Danny gasped as his dad walked right through him and put down a mirror against the bathroom wall so it faced the doorway. 

His mom set up a camera and Danny dashed behind them. Maddie put her hands on her hips. “Alright, we can look tomorrow morning before we leave town.”

“I love you, Maddie.”

“I love you too, Jack.”

Danny rolled his eyes as his parents kissed.  _ That is my cue to leave _ . He thought to himself as he began to rise out of the house. He had just about left when he heard a shout from his parents and looked down. 

It was just in time to see a swollen decayed hand almost grab his leg. When he jerked away, the figure stumbled. She looked up at him, a black void where her eyes should have been. Out of those black pools dripped a liquid that cascaded down her face, giving the impression of tears. 

Unlike tears, they also made a vein-like pattern across her face. A chunk of flesh dropped off and splashed against the ground. The  _ splat  _ that sounded echoed in the bathroom as her mouth opened impossibly wide and Danny saw rows and rows of teeth as her body tried to take shape. 

“Mads! Run!” 

Danny took his eyes off the ghost for one second after seeing a flash of orange and blue. He turned back. The ghost was gone. Danny felt a pressure in his chest as he realized that the ghost may have gone after his parents.

A second later, he heard the door below slam open. He floated up to the window and saw his parents leaving the house in a flash, stopping in front of the car to catch their breath. 

Danny let out a sigh before he noticed the vapor that left his mouth. “Nope,” he said to himself. He walked through the wall in front of him. He stayed long enough to see everyone leave the building.

* * *

Danny jumped when his parents unlocked the hotel door, despite being on the lookout for them. It did not, however, seem to phase Jazz in the slightest. 

As soon as the lights clicked on, Jazz spoke. “Where have you two been?”

Jack and Maddie looked down at them. They blinked. “Jazz?” Maddie asked. 

Jazz stood up and marched over to her parents. She slapped the brochure against her dad’s chest. “You promised, Dad!”

Jack grabbed the brochure and looked at her. “Uh… I promised not to bring any extra equipment…”

Jazz stomped her foot. “That is NOT what I was asking for and you know it!”

Maddie reached up and covered her husband’s mouth, and gave him a  _ look _ that Danny usually only saw reserved for him when he came home later. She let out a sigh before closing the door to the hotel room. “Jazz, before anything else. I’m sorry-”

Jazz rounded on her. “You’re  _ sorry _ ? I just-”

Maddie held up a hand and waited for Jazz to take the cue to stop. “Yes, Jazz, I’m sorry. If I had known your father promised that, I wouldn’t have asked him to take me to the haunted house.”

Jazz threw her hands up into the air. “I just wanted one trip, _ one _ family trip, without ghosts. Is that too much to ask?”

Maddie shook her head. “No, Jazz, it’s not. But…” Maddie sighed and put her cheek into her hand as looked at Danny and Jazz. “You two… you’re growing up so fast. Soon Danny will be off to college, too. I wanted to have a date night with your father… like our old days. When we were in college, we went to haunted houses all the time. I just… wanted some of that old magic back.”

Jazz folded her arms and looked away. “I’m still mad.”

Maddie nodded. “That’s alright.” She turned toward her husband. “What’s not alright, is not telling me certain things.”

Jack blushed and looked away, chastised. “I did think of telling you, Jazzy-pants, but it sounded like you two were going to bed, and I didn’t want to wake you for this.” He turned and faced Jazz. “I’m sorry, I should have known better.” 

Jazz looked up at her dad, and sighed. “Just… no more ghost hunting this trip. Okay?”

“I promise, Jazz, no more ghost hunting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I have head cannons. Among which, Danny's parents have encountered ghosts before, but the more classical type of ghost. They didn't arrive at "All ghosts are evil" with no evidence, just very biased evidence.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ember still doesn't have a permit, and Danny gets enough reasons to avoid every haunted house tour ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime) for helping me try to write something I don't normally write and to [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura). The two of them are amazing beta readers. And again a thanks to [ayamari_no_goshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayamari_no_goshi/pseuds/ayamari_no_goshi) for some old folk lore which helped write these last couple chapters.

Danny woke up when his phone started vibrating under his pillow. He groaned and reached under and turned the alarm off without looking at it. When it stopped shaking, he pulled it out and stared at it for a minute. It turned out he hadn't turned it off but instead snoozed it. That was fine by him. He had time.

He started flipping through his phone, trying to wake up from the fog of sleep before he heard Jazz speak up. "Shouldn't you get going?"

Danny sighed and sat up. "Shouldn't you be asleep?"

Jazz rolled over and looked at Danny. In the dim room, no human would have been able to see her well. With ghostly enhanced vision, Danny was able to see the puffiness of her eyes and a bit of darkening around them.

"Ah,” Danny said in understanding. He looked down at the ground and said morosely, “sorry, Jazz."

She wiped at her eyes, even though she had stopped crying long ago. "It's not your fault."

"Still sorry."

She chuckled. "You know, my whole 'no ghosts on this trip' thing wasn't even for me."

Danny put his phone on the nightstand and placed his elbows on his knees. "What do you mean?"

Jazz sat up. She scooted back, so her back was against the headrest. "I wanted Mom and Dad to have a couple of weeks without ghosts, maybe give them some time to realize that ghosts aren't the problem that they think they are."

Danny felt his chest constrict. He knew where this was going. "Jazz..."

Jazz threw her hands in the air. "I just wanted them to realize that maybe, just maybe, all ghosts aren’t evil, you know?"

Danny stood up and walked over to Jazz's bed. "I think it'll take longer than two weeks for that to happen."

Jazz laughed. "Yeah… probably."

Danny looked at his hands. "Jazz-"

"No."

Danny looked at her. His eyes flashed green, lighting up her face for just a moment. "No, Jazz, you _ need _ to understand this." He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. When he opened them again, they were no longer glowing. "I don't want you throwing your own happiness under a bus for me."

Jazz frowned, but he continued. "I mean it! These two weeks, they're for you. It's probably one of our last family trips!"

Jazz reached out; she missed at first, but she found his arm quickly enough. "It’s your family too, Danny.”

Danny patted her arm. "I'm fine, Jazz. I just want you to be happy. Okay?"

Jazz squeezed Danny's arm. "The same goes for you too, you know?" She let go and folded her hands in her lap. "You should get going, though; you have a long flight waiting for you." 

She paused for a moment. "Wait." Jazz scooted over the bed and reached around for her suitcase. Once she found it, she opened it up and fumbled inside it in the dark for a bit before pulling out a music player. "Here, something for the flight over."

Danny looked down at it then back up to her. "It might get damaged if Ember fights back."

Jazz shrugged. "It's old, and your birthday is coming up." She smiled brightly. "You can ask for a replacement for your birthday!"

Danny chuckled. "Alright," he said, taking the music player. The rings that accompanied his transformation lit up the room, and he saw Jazz flinch before she smiled at him. "I'm off!"

Jazz waved. "Go get her, little brother."

* * *

Ember smirked as she watched the crowd chanting her name. It had been a couple of hours, and her core throbbed with the adoration the crowd gave her. They all were ready to worship the ground she walked on, and she loved every syllable that came out of their mouths as they chanted her name.

She had to fight down the frustration she felt when she saw Phantom flying towards her. She rolled her shoulders and bit on her tongue until she felt stable again. It gave her a few minutes before he showed up at her concert.

Phantom flew up in front of Ember. "Really? We're doing this again?" he growled out angrily.

Ember looked him up and down and frowned. There was a tension in his shoulders that wasn't there the other day. His fists were clenched at his sides tightly, and his whole body was shaking slightly. Ember flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Yeah, we are, Baby Pop," she said. The pet name came out of her mouth smoothly, and Phantom flinched at it. She smirked. It seemed like Phantom needed to get out some aggression. "You're gonna have to work to stop me from doing my shows."

Phantom flew over the crowd and got in her face. "Yeah, well, guess what? I'm here."

Ember leaned forward and smirked. Their faces were close enough to make Phantom appear uncomfortable, from what Ember could tell. "So you are," she said and played a chord on her guitar.

Phantom flinched at the sound and flew back a foot or two, expecting a sound-based attack.

It left him woefully unprepared for the skeleton she had summoned, tackling him.

She didn't like this power. She usually only used it to summon something to play the other parts of her songs. These shades were useless when it came to feeding her obsession. They only knew what she imbued them with, they couldn’t replace the roar of a crowd. 

Fortunately, she knew how to fight pretty well. 

Phantom eventually got the skeleton off him, and he smashed the thing’s head against the ground. The ectoplasm shattered before turning into something less substantial, melting into the ground. He stood up and glared at her with a surprising amount of hate.

She smirked. It was kind of cute, she had to admit.

She strummed a few chords, and Phantom took a step back when a dozen skeletons crawled out of the ground. "Oh, Baby Pop, did you think that was it?"

Phantom didn't waste time, immediately jumping on a skeleton and pounding the skull in. She answered in turn by tuning down her guitar and slamming the strings to produce more skeletons.

She felt the smile on her face stretch to inhuman proportions. Sure, people were running away from the concert now. The hordes of dead rising from the ground could do that. But she could taste the frustration Phantom was feeling melting away. The teen's screams of anger made a perfect vocalization to her music.

She drank in the rage that he emanated and let it out in her chords. The ground shook with the hordes of skeletons she summoned. Phantom had a lot of anger. It was gross. Grating. Grinding against her soul.

But the music soothed it. She loved it. Each slam against the strings was a strike against the world that let her die. She wasn't sure what Phantom was angry at right now, but she could feel deep down that he needed this as well.

She bit her lip as the music shook her body. She looked up and saw Phantom screaming and punching another skeleton with a glowing green fist. It was a stark contrast to the blue her skeletons gave off. Each skeleton that went after Phantom caved within seconds. But he didn't seem like he was going to give up any time soon.

Which would have been easy; none of these guys could fly. All Phantom had to do to stop her was just simply float over the army she spawned and come at her directly.

He didn't.

He was doing this the HARD way.

Or perhaps the fun way.

Hard to tell with ghosts like them sometimes.

Even with a seemingly unlimited army of skeleton shades, it didn't take Phantom long to punch and smash and kick his way through them all. Before long, he was in front of her again. This time, he was panting with the exertion of getting to her, hair stuck to his forehead from sweating, and his shoulders heaved with every breath.

Ember smirked. "Let's take this somewhere else, shall we?"

And she breathed.

Fire enveloped the two of them, and the world shifted. Phantom brought his arms up to defend himself, but he lowered them when she didn't move. He looked around and saw that they were in an alley somewhere. Phantom sighed and leaned against the wall. He slowly fell down the wall and wound up sitting on the ground.

Ember walked over and leaned against the wall next to him, refusing to sit. The ground was gross, and she was not going to do that. Phantom rubbed his face before tilting his head back . He glanced up to her and commented, "I didn't know you could summon things like that."

Ember smirked. "There's a lot you don't know about me, Baby Pop." She looked up and snapped her fingers. A skeleton appeared in a burst of fire five feet from them. He was wearing a hat with a flame pattern, and a tank top with the word “remember” written on it, along with a set of baggy cargo pants and some boots. 

He walked up to the two of them, reached into his pockets, and produced two bottles of water. After handing them over, he left in a burst of fire. 

Phantom absently unscrewed the top off the bottle of water. "That is awesome," he said with reverent awe. "I wish I could do that."

Ember felt her core flutter as she fed off the adoration he gave. "Yeah, I know I am. Say it again."

Phantom guzzled down half the bottle in one go. He looked up at her and smiled. "That was awesome. I can’t believe I fought an army of skeletons to ‘Rip and Tear’." Immediately afterwards, though, he frowned and looked down.

Ember scoffed. Phantom was currently hanging out alone with her in a dingy back alley somewhere, just the two of them. For whatever reason, he wasn't living in the moment. That wouldn't do.

"What's eating you?" Ember asked after biting off the cap of her water bottle. The casual show of force made him jump. 

Phantom stared at her for a moment, fighting with himself over something, before his shoulders slumped in defeat. "It's my parents."

"Figures, adults suck. Parents especially so."

Phantom shrugged, clearly not as convinced as her in this basic truth. He ran a hand through his hair and slumped. "Yeah, you know how this whole road trip was for Jazz, right?" Ember nodded and raised an eyebrow at him; of course she knew. He smirked. "Yeah, stupid question. Well… Jazz asked them to have a ghost-free road trip."

"Bit late for that, don't you think?" she said. She indicated the two of them with her water bottle before taking another sip. 

Phantom laughed. "Okay, minimal ghost involvement road trip." His smile fell almost immediately. "My dad promised not to bring any extra ghost hunting equipment on the trip. Want to guess what my parents did the first night of the trip?"

"I can make a guess. Go ghost hunting?"

"Go ghost hunting."

Ember made a noncommittal noise. "Find anything?"

Phantom froze for a second and then set down his bottle of water. His hands shook slightly as he did so. It wasn't noticeable from his hands but rather from the rapid set of ripples that appeared in the water he was holding. 

"Yeah, actually."

Ember watched his hands, barely shaking. It reminded her of the time she had been caught by the Guys in White. Phantom was shaking then too. She wondered at the time if he had always shook when he was doing his hero thing. And if it did, why was he shaking now? She sat up. "What did he find?"

Phantom waved his hands about. "A ghost, obviously." He chuckled for a second before looking down. "It was a lot different from any other ghost I've seen, though."

Ember had a sneaking suspicion that she knew what he was talking about. She placed a hand on Phantom’s shoulder and squeezed hard. "How so?"

Phantom didn't seem to notice the forcefulness behind her tone. He blinked and looked up at her. "She looked… wrong." Ember felt her core clench. "Like, her skin was bloated and looked wrong. Grey… at least in parts. There were wounds on her hands, I think. They weren't bleeding ectoplasm. It was solid black." 

She let him continue, and he indicated his eyes. "Her eyes were solid black too, and she had these… veins on her face."

"Let me guess, also bleeding black?"

"Yeah, it was really creepy." 

"We need to go," Ember stated, "right now." 

"Uh, what?" 

Ember pulled him up to his feet and breathed again. 

* * *

When Danny stopped breathing smoke and ash, he took a moment to look around him. Ember was next to him and looking down. He followed her gaze and saw that they were miles above where he had been staying. 

Ember glanced at him, then back down. "Where were they?"   
  


He opened his mouth to ask just what was going on, but the look on her face made him hold himself back. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and her eyes were beginning to become glassy with unshed tears. 

Danny looked down and saw the patch of darkness outside of town. "There," he said and began leading the way. The two of them landed together outside the building. When he was here before, there at least were the lights from the GAV. Right now, there was only the light from the half-moon and the stars. 

The wind howled, tussling Danny’s hair. He shivered as the wind bit into him. 

"Yeah, I can feel her," Ember said, shuddering. She took a confident step forward. Her footfalls practically echoed in the night. Each step shuddered down Danny's spine. 

"How can you tell?" Danny asked. As far as he knew, none of the other ghosts had the same ghost sense he had. 

Ember glanced back. "You really don't know much about us, do you?" She turned toward the building and walked up the steps. 

Danny stopped her. "Wait, my parents set up some cameras." 

Ember turned and shot him with a glare that made him step back. "This is fucking important, Phantom!" 

Danny held up his hands. "We just have to stay invisible!"

Ember folded her arms. "Just… go in and turn off the cameras!" 

"Alright, alright…" Danny said. He turned toward the building and hesitated. He remembered pitch-black voidless eyes and shuddered. Glowing green skeletons? Not a problem. Something from his nightmares? Bit different.

"Danny," Ember said quietly. Her casual use of his name cut through everything that he was thinking. She never called him that. It was always ‘Phantom’ or ‘Baby Pop’, never his name. "Please."

Danny looked at her. She was clenching her fists, and her hair swayed back and forth like an annoyed cat's tail. But her eyes were a bit softer than they were a moment ago. 

Danny nodded and turned back toward the door. He stopped when he let out a shuddering breath and a mist came out of his mouth. He steeled himself and went invisible.   
  
Part of him screamed to speed through the house, like when he was little and he had to turn the lights off at the bottom of the stairs. He’d scramble up the steps trying to get away from  _ whatever  _ was in the dark behind him. But he had learned a bit after fighting those things, and rushing was never a good idea.    
  
Instead, despite how he felt about it, he took his time. His night vision was better than any human’s but that made the pitch blackness of the house so much worse. Going through the house and finding the camera his parents had set up must have only taken a minute or two, but it felt like an age. 

The camera was facing the bathroom but lying on its side on the floor. Even in their panic, his parents still had the ability to make sure to put the equipment in the general direction it needed to go. They had even gotten it on. The green light on the front shone in the hallway, casting it in an eerie glow. 

He refused to turn his back toward the bathroom, though. He slowly floated toward the camera, careful not to disturb anything and trigger the motion sensor. 

The light on the camera died, but the glow didn't go away.

Danny looked up and saw the woman in front of him again. She reached out and grabbed his face. She was too close for him to move out of the way. He did manage to grab hold of her hands, though. 

They didn't feel right. They were spongey, like rotten vegetables that were barely holding onto their structure. Cold liquid dripped between Danny's fingers, the chill seeping through the gloves of his jumpsuit. The smell made him gag, like meat left out for days. 

He also couldn't stop her. Her hands slowly inched up his face. 

Her thumbs began to put pressure on his eyes. 

The next second, just when he got ready to use his ghostly wail to blast her away, she was ripped away. 

He blinked and almost pressed his hand against his eyes, but stopped when he saw them coated in the black liquid that dripped from the ghost he was fighting. He looked up and saw Ember walking toward the ghost. 

Ember had her arms thrown out to her sides. "Come on, give me your best shot!" she shouted. 

With a cry of rage, the ghost dove at Ember. Ember barely flinched when the ghost slammed her into the ground. Danny watched in horror as the ghost clawed at Ember's face. "Ember!" he shouted. He was frozen to the spot. Everything happening too fast for him to react.

"It's okay!" Ember grunted out, even as the ghost ripped apart her face. "We're dead, Danny. She can't do anything to me, really." He thought Ember was going to defend herself, but instead she just let it happen. She grunted in pain, but didn’t react otherwise. 

After an eternity, the ghost stopped tearing at Ember's face. The ghost heaved over Ember's body, then reached up and touched her own lack of eyes. With a cry, she vanished. 

Ember sat up, shakily putting her hands underneath her. Danny jumped up and helped her sit up. He couldn't look away from her eyes.

Or rather, the lack of them. 

Ember shuddered underneath his hands, slowly bringing up a hand to cover her face. She pulled it away, and her eyes were back. She looked back at him with glowing green eyes, and he let go of a breath he wasn't aware he had been holding.

"She doesn't know what she's doing," Ember explained, "She's hurting. She's stretched across decades and decades of existence with nothing feeding her, and she's in  _ pain _ ." 

Danny felt something wash over him. The sheer hurt in Ember's voice resonated something within him, his obsession demanding that he do something to prevent anyone from feeling that kind of pain again. 

"What's going on?" he asked. 

Ember jumped at his voice and looked at him with wide eyes. She smiled softly at him. "She's one of the Lost."

"What?"

Ember stood up and brushed off her clothes, which had gone back to normal after letting this new ghost attack her. She looked at him and put a hand on her hip. "You didn't wander after you got ghostly, right? Cause you're still alive. Us…" she indicated herself. "We didn't just die and wake up with cool powers. There were steps we had to go through. The first hard one was to make it to the ghost zone…" She pointed at the building. "She didn't make it."

"So, how do we help her?"

Ember turned toward the bathroom. "We’ve got to get her into the ghost zone."

"Uhhh… how do we do that? It's not like we have a portal here."

Ember looked over her shoulder and laughed at him. "Oh, Baby Pop, it's not like your portal is the only way in…" She entered the bathroom and looked around. "Oh, there's already two mirrors in here." 

Danny followed her to the doorway. The bathroom was a bit too small for both of them to fit in comfortably. He leaned against the frame and looked past her. "Yeah, my parents brought it in for… something…"

"It'll do," she said, lifting it up and placing it on the wall across from the bathroom's mirror. She looked at it with her hands on her hips. She went invisible and uttered, "Perfect."

Danny leaned in. "What's going on?"

Ember grabbed him and dragged him next to her. "Go invisible, Baby Pop, and look at the mirror."

Danny followed her instructions and looked into the mirror. All he could see was a tunnel of mirrors that seemed to go on forever until the light faded into black. "I don't see anything."

He could feel rather than see Ember roll her eyes. "Look closer! Deep in there, you're ghostly. You should be able to see it."

Danny blinked a couple of times and leaned forward. Something did seem off. In the center of the mirror, it seemed like something was shifting, and there was a bit of green. "Wait…"

"Yup, two mirrors, a bit of ghostly energy,” she indicated the two of them there, “and you got yourself a one-way ticket to the ghost zone." She shrugged. "Or back."

"So… we have a portal. How do we get her through it?"

"Wait…" Ember said quietly. The two of them sat there for a moment, with no movement. It took Danny an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize Ember was still holding onto him.

He was about to say something when his ghost sense went off.    
  
In the mirror, he saw the ghost appear. She passed between Ember and Danny. The closer she got to the mirror, the more of a smile broke out on her face. Chunks of flesh fell off her face as she grew closer to the mirror. She reached out, and touched the surface of the mirror. Danny held his breath as she passed through the plane of glass. Slowly at first, she flew down the hallway of mirrors in the glass. Growing smaller and smaller until he couldn’t see her anymore.

The wind howled outside the house, and Danny realized he hadn’t heard a sound the last several minutes.

Ember let out a breath. "She's gone. She made it." The two of them went back into visibility. She leaned against Danny and put her head against his shoulder. "Thank you, Danny. That meant a lot to me." 

Danny nodded stiffly. "No problem… just… next time, warn me if you're going to do something like let her claw your eyes out."

"You mean you'd help again?"

"In a heartbeat."

Ember smiled and hugged Danny. "Thank you, I'll take you up on that if I ever hear of another." She took a step back. "I'll see you later, Phantom." And she disappeared in a gout of flame. 

Danny looked about the house. It was a lot less creepy now, but he still didn't want to hang around. He flew up through the ceiling and made his way back to the hotel. 

Five hundred feet away, he stopped. "Wait, is THAT how the Box Ghost keeps getting out?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uhh.... That was a thing...
> 
> So this is getting into my headcanons again, but my theory is that there are multiple times of ghosts out there. Here we've encountered what every ghost hunter thinks of when you tell them a ghost is haunting a place, which is why the Fenton's think all ghosts are evil. Every ghost that doesn't get into the ghost zone devolves into what Danny and Ember encountered. 
> 
> I'll explain more in the other arcs, so don't worry. This won't be the last time we see something like this..


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She has a permit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) for beta reading this chapter!

"Oooohhh! Another Ember concert tonight?" 

The words stopped Valerie in her place as she walked out of the school. Summer may have been going on for a while, but the school stayed open. All the ghost attacks meant that more than a couple of students needed to make up for missed classes. 

She couldn't have heard what she just heard. That was impossible. Ember was last seen practically in Illinois, with Phantom chasing her down. It was like he had completely forgotten that there were tons of ghosts in Amity that he was supposed to be taking care of. 

No, she did not want to talk about the hypocrisy of her trying to chase him out of town and now regretting that he was gone. She was on three hours of sleep right now.

"Oh my god! Really?" Paulina said, running over to where Star was standing. Her bright smile turned into a frown after she put a moment of thought into it. "Wait, she's Phantom's enemy. Should we go?"

Star turned on Paulina, scandalized. "Are you joking? And miss out on an awesome concert? Everyone is going to be there!" She turned back to the paper after getting Paulina's approval in the form of a nod. "It says she's doing a concert for an ecological protest…" Star mused. 

Valerie marched up to the school notice board. "Who approved that?" she growled out. 

Paulina rolled her eyes. "Just because you're jealous of her-"

"Of Ember? What would I have to be jealous of?" Valerie snapped. 

"She's pretty, successful, rich, and all the boys want her?" Star listed off. 

"She's  _ dead _ !" Valerie countered. She reached past her two former friends and lifted the paper. "What the hell?"

Paulina tried to look past Valerie's hand. "What is it?"

"Sam's name is on this. She got Mr. Lancer's sign-off for it." Paulina took hold of the paper, and Valerie moved to let her look. The three women looked at each other. "You guys don't think that-?"

"Sam and Ember?" Star cut off. "Please. She was probably just excited about the environment stuff, I mean-"

"Didn't Ember teach Danny guitar?" Paulina cut in.

There was a beat of silence as the three of them all took that in. A chill rode down Valerie's spine at the thought of Sam and Danny cavorting with ghosts. They should have known better to do that, with Danny's parents being the foremost ghost experts in the world. 

But that hadn't stopped Danny from taking guitar lessons from a ghost. 

Valerie looked at the time of the concert; it was a few hours from now. Long enough for her to go home and take a nap before investigating. 

Paulina spoke up. "Maybe Ember’s a friendly ghost now? Like Phantom? Oooh, we  _ have  _ to meet her! We can’t let Sam think she’s cooler than us!" 

Star nodded. "Definitely!" 

The two of them looked at Valerie for support. For a brief moment, Valerie remembered back when they were friends. Before Danny Phantom and his stupid dog, before they kicked her out of their little posse. 

Valerie scoffed, "Whatever, keep me out of it." She walked away, already beginning a mental checklist of what weapons she had at the moment that were fully functional.

* * *

A few hours later, Valerie was flying over the town, feeling more tired from her nap than before she had gone down for it. The protest was being held in the park on the edge of town. It wasn't a popular location, mostly because of how out of the way it was. Right now, though, the place was packed. Valerie was thankful for her hoverboard – trying to drive would have been impossible. Despite being a ghost, Ember really could draw a crowd.

Valerie touched down at the edge of the park next to a police officer she recognized. "What's the situation?" she asked.

The police officer looked at her and sighed. "Hey, Red,” he said, resigned in that way when someone is about to deliver bad news. “I… honestly don't know what to tell you. There isn't one."

Valerie blinked behind her visor. "What?"

The officer nodded. "She has a permit."

"She has a _ what _ ?" Valerie screeched. She slid her hand over her helmet as she tried to recover from learning that bit of knowledge. "How does a  _ ghost _ get a permit for a concert?"

"That would be my doing." Valerie turned to see Sam walking towards the two of them. She had shown up as if she was waiting for her. For all Valerie knew, maybe she had been. "Hi there, Red."

Valerie formed a gun in her hands and prepared to aim it at the goth. The officer quickly jumped between the girls, eyes wide and frantic. "Mike, she's probably being controlled. This laser should snap her out of it," she explained.

Sam rolled her eyes. "You know what? Go ahead, I'll wait." The officer looked between Sam and Valerie a couple times before stepping out of the way. 

Valerie hesitated. That was  _ not _ the response she was expecting. The gun stayed by her side for now. "You're not gonna try to run?" she asked. Usually, ghosts overshadowing someone would run when threatened to be kicked out of the bodies they were inhabiting.

Sam folded her arms and, despite being shorter than Valerie, seemed to look down on her. "No, 'cause you're going to scream about mind control and cause a whole scene here if I do." She took a step toward Valerie. "So go on, get it over with. I know how much that hurts, so let's just get it over with."

Valerie hesitated, but she wasn't going to let a ghost trick her. She snapped the gun up and blasted Sam in the shoulder. 

Sam cried out in pain and took a step back. The weapon in her hands might not have been as loud as an actual gun, but the blast from the weapon was still loud enough to attract everyone’s attention in the area. Mike walked up to Sam and checked on her, but she waved him off. “We have GOT to find a better way to stop overshadowing,” Sam said as she straightened up and shook out her wrist. "Feel better?" she said, glaring at Valerie. 

Valerie glared back just as hard at Sam. "Not really, no." She felt her face heat up as the crowd around her began to whisper about her. More than a few comments were made about her being unable to identify overshadowed people.

She couldn't believe Sam was crazy enough to try and mess with ghosts. Especially one that could and  _ would _ brainwash her.

Sam scoffed and brushed her hair back behind her ears. "Fenton Phones," she said, tapping the device on her ears, "they filter out ecto noise. I can't be brainwashed by sound-based attacks while wearing these." 

Valerie seethed under her armor. "So you just enabled a ghost to prey on humans?" she shouted, taking a step forward. 

Sam took a step forward herself. "She isn't preying on them." 

Valerie's suit popped a warning that her armor was taking too much stress. She looked down at her clenched shaking fist before looking back at Sam. "Aren't you friends with Danny Fenton?" Valerie said, marching forward. "Shouldn't you know better than this?" 

Sam scoffed. "Oh, trust me. I know way more than you." 

Valerie threw her arms out. "Ghosts lie! They just want to hurt people! You should know this! The Fentons have released so much research on this!"

Sam brushed off her shoulder. "I know they have. Their research is flawed." 

Valerie opened and closed her mouth multiple times. "My god! Are you serious? You're just going to ignore the foremost ghost researchers on the planet cause you are trying to be an activist!" 

Sam growled, "Excuse you? Trying? What do you think I'm doing here?"

"Putting hundreds of people in danger!" 

"I'm trying to draw attention to the fact that we are destroying another park for mindless consumerism! We don't need another mall!"

"We don't need another ghost attack!"

"Boys! Boys! Let’s not fight, both teams played well!" a loud voice cried out. Valerie flinched, not at the volume - though it was loud enough people covered their ears - but instead resisting an urge to shoot. There was a burst of fire nearby, and Ember came waltzing out. 

The group around them went crazy. People started screaming Ember’s name over and over. Valerie took a step forward to stop her, but she felt something grab onto her shoulder. She turned to punch whatever fan was stopping her from attacking the ghost, but instead came visor to face with Mike, who shook his head.

Smoothly walking over like she owned the place, she reached Sam. Ember grabbed her by her wrist and started pulling her back into the crowd. "Come on! My first song is gonna start, and I want you there!" 

Sam sputtered at Ember's insistence. Whether that was at Ember literally dragging her away from the fight or Ember apparently picking Sam up to be at the concert, Valerie couldn’t tell. "Little busy here, Ember!"

Ember stopped and looked Valerie over. "Sam, your time is worth so much more than to waste it on something like  _ her. _ " 

"Excuse me!" Valerie screeched. She got enough of that from Paulina.

"You heard me," Ember said. She looked at the police officer, who looked like he REALLY didn't want to be there at the moment. Valerie didn't blame him. When Ember attacked, he wouldn't be able to do much. "I suppose it'd be too much to ask you to keep her off the premises?"

To Valerie's surprise, it wasn't Mike who spoke up. "Sorry, Ember, it's a public park. She can be here if she wants." 

Ember clicked her tongue. "Fine, but if she causes issues, she can be removed, right?"

Sam turned to face Ember. "Yeah, but that applies to you, too. No starting anything yourself."

"No promises!" Ember sang. 

Valerie stood there, watching Ember's hair rising in the air as people filled in the crowd behind her and worshipped the ground she walked on. 

"I hate to say it, but she's right." the police officer said. "If you cause problems, we'll have to arrest you." 

Valerie turned and growled, "What?"

The police officer made a significant look down. Valerie followed his eyes to her own hand, still holding the pistol she had formed. She let go of it, and it melded back into her suit. Her hand ached with how tightly Valerie had been holding onto it. She shook her hand and glared at the officer. "Well, when she does pull something, I'll be here." 

The officer nodded. "Wouldn't have it any other way." 

* * *

The ride in the car was dead silent. Danny was the expert on that. Not just because he was dead, but because of all those awkward times where he refused to tell Mr. Lancer or some other teacher why he didn't have his homework with him for the third time that week. He'd rather be sitting in detention again than be in the car with his family right now. 

Jazz hadn't pulled out her Switch, and he had followed her lead, in some sort of weird solidarity. That, and also all the games she had bought him and loaded on there were multiplayer games, and it felt wrong to be playing without her right now. 

Jazz had said she forgave their parents, but it was obvious that there was still some healing that needed to happen. 

_ Huh,  _ Danny thought to himself.  _ I guess those therapy sessions with Jazz have been helping, maybe… _

"Are you kids getting hungry?" Jack asked from the driver seat. Even he was more subdued than usual. His driving could be described as legal for a change. 

Jazz hummed an affirmative, but she continued staring out the window. 

"Alright," he said and flicked his turn signal before changing lanes. A sign came up on the side of the road, saying that the next exit had a gas station and three restaurants: a fast-food burger joint, a sandwich shop, and a local diner that had slapped a sticker saying "haunted" underneath it. 

Danny held his breath as his dad exited the highway. "Burgers or sandwiches, Jazzy pants?"

Jazz perked up and looked at him. "Sandwiches, if that's okay."

Jack flipped on the turn signal as he went on the off-ramp. "Of course," he said, taking the turn probably a bit too hard. A few turns later, the Fentons had pulled into the parking lot. He jumped out of the car and opened the door for Maddie as the kids climbed out. 

"Whoa, that's quite the beast there," someone said as they came out of the sandwich shop. He lifted his hat to look at the GAV and rubbed at his beard.

Jack laughed. "Yeah, it is quite a monster. We built her from the ground up."

"Really?"

Jack nodded. "Yup, been meaning to upgrade her, but we've been busy." 

The man looked at the treads on the back of half of the vehicle. "Upgrade how? You guys trying to make this a tank or something?" 

Jack laughed once again. "No, nothing like that. We've just made some changes that should get us more miles to the gallon."

"What are you getting on that rig?"

"40 to 50, about."

The man let out a long whistle. "Wish my truck could get something like that," he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to a semi-truck around the restaurant.

Jack reached into a pocket and pulled out a card. "We actually do retrofits, if you're interested." He handed the card over. "We could install it in your truck. We have had truckers come by before, actually."

The man took the card. "Huh, really? Interesting."

"We also add security systems and other stuff as well. We have a radio system that's definitely better than what you have in there, too," Maddie offered as well, putting a hand on Jack's shoulder.

"I'll be sure to check you guys out. Have a nice day!" With an incline of his head, the man waved and walked off to his truck, pocketing the Fentons’ business card.

Jazz smiled and walked up to Jack. "And not a single comment about ghosts; I'm proud of you, Dad."

Jack let out a booming laugh. "Well, unfortunately, most of the world isn't aware of the threat that ghosts are. Have to make them interested for their own reasons. Now come on, let's get some food."

Jazz looked over at a big box store across the way. "Actually, I'm going to run over there real quick. Can you guys get me a ham and cheese sandwich?"

Danny frowned. "Jazz, aren't you sick of those? You make us those for lunch every day." 

Jazz smiled and ruffled Danny's hair. "Nope!" she said, giving him a kiss on the crown of his head. 

He sputtered and mumbled out “gross” and adjusted his hair before following his parents into the store. There was nobody in line, so they were able to just walk up and order. The three of them had almost finished their sandwiches when Jazz came back in with a plastic bag. 

"What you get there, princess?" Jack asked. 

Jazz slid into the seat next to Danny before sliding the bag over to her dad. Maddie raised an eyebrow at the bag as Jack opened the bag. It was another Switch and another copy of Smash. 

"Don't get too excited," Jazz said. "I used your card to buy it."

Jack laughed and opened the box. "Well, you best be ready. Me and my Ghostbuster friend Luigi will take you two down!" 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter almost didn't get out this week. Been an extremely busy one for me. I had hoped that I would have the whole arc written before posting for this particular reason, but sadly life didn't let me do that. 
> 
> Related to that, I'm going to be very busy this week with my family, so I'm not sure if the next chapter will come out next week, hopefully, it will, but I'm just stating that there's a good chance there won't be one.
> 
> Also, I made a Tumblr https://brokeitwiththepowerofmathamatics.tumblr.com/ so if you wanted to ask me a question or something but didn't want to leave a comment you can talk to me there.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to follow Jazz on a college tour. Unfortunately for Danny, he's gotta go to it. Poor guy is going to be bored out of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime) and [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) for beta reading.

Danny trudged behind Jazz and his parents as they walked through an old college building. He personally had no desire to walk through the building. Maddie had made it clear that everyone was expected to do the college walkthrough, and he and Jack couldn't just sit in the student lounge and play Smash. 

Instead, Danny was on his phone as they were walking, trying to numb himself from the boring facts the tour guide spouted.  _ Hey guys, any advice for dealing with Luigi in Smash? _

His mom addressed him directly, "Oh, you hear that, Danny? They have an engineering department!"

Danny sighed and looked up at his mom. She was smiling, but her eyes looked sad. Danny knew exactly what she was trying to do. Both his parents wanted him to have the same four year college experience they did, but everyone knew that wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes he wished he’d never told her he wanted to go to school for engineering like she did. Danny tore his eyes away from her and looked down the hallway. "That's cool," he said quietly. 

His phone buzzed. He looked down. A message from Tucker.  _ Why do you need advice? Luigi isn't exactly top tier.  _

Their student tour guide spoke up. "Yes, our engineering department has a great career placement rate. Would you like to know more?" 

Danny felt a lump form in his throat. He wanted to so badly, but it was out of his reach. Studying and ghost fighting were not compatible hobbies. Not everyone could be perfect student Jazz Fenton, graduating an entire year early from high school. A Ph.D. in engineering was impossible for him. He shouldn't even be thinking about it. 

His core ached. 

Jazz interrupted his thoughts. "Actually, I was really hoping to speak to Dr. Mozzily. Is she in? I really wanted a chance to discuss her paper on the development of teens who had to adapt to adult responsibilities quickly."

"Of course!" the guide responded quickly. The relieved smile that spread across his face made Danny realize that he had been staring toward the engineering department for a while. The group started walking toward an exit. "We should step outside, the psychology department is on the other side of the cafeteria, and the way the building is designed, we'd have to walk the entire building. It'll be faster if we just go outside," the student rambled, clearly nervous to deviate from their normal script. 

Danny gave one last look toward the engineering department before following, burying his nose in his phone again. He shouldn’t think about it.

_That's rude to say about the better Mario brother,_ Sam sent. She then followed up with another text. _Anyways, Luigis tend to spam cyclones to break out of combos, so make sure you're actually doing combos and not just stringing, or if you start a string. Pause and let him spin on nothing then punish._

_ you know danny doesnt know what that means.  _ Tucker said after that. 

_ Right. Hit a few times, wait for him to try and counter, counter the counter.  _

_ thats better _

_ It'd be easier to give advice if you explained what you were having problems with. Personally, I find Captain Falcon a fairly easy match up against most Luigi players, but that's just me.  _

Another text from Sam.  _ P.S. If Danny doesn’t know, then you DEFINITELY don’t know. _

_ You don't need to brag, Sam,  _ Tucker replied.

Danny smirked. Proper punctuation from Tucker? He was mad. Danny typed out a quip in response but quickly backspaced. His heart wasn’t in it. Right now, this felt like just another topic he knew nothing about. 

Sam followed up with a smiley face and the text,  _ Yeah, I do. _

Danny sighed, staring at the screen. He really didn’t want to get into everything over text, but he just wasn’t in the mood to talk about Smash anymore. Or school. Or anything. What he wouldn’t give to turn his brain off and go for a mindless flight right now. 

Danny finally typed out a response.  _ Sorry guys, I'm in the middle of Jazz's school thing. _

Tucker's response was immediate.  _ no worries, i figured thats what was going on _

A follow-up text.  _ Jazz doesn't strike me as a Luigi player though, I'd have thought Kirby or Yoshi.  _

Danny responded to that.  _ Actually, it's my dad. _

Sam responded a moment later.  _ Can we trade parents? _

Danny gave a weak laugh as he walked into the psychology department with his family. The moment he crossed the threshold, the laugh morphed into a cough. A lump formed in his throat instantly, but, through shuddering breaths, vapor came out of his mouth. His eyes widened as it slowly rose up. He felt like this before, and recently too. 

With one hand, he started texting Sam, anxiety growing.  _ sam can you call ember tell her i think theres a lost here _

Danny ran to catch up with his parents. Jazz raised an eyebrow at his sudden change in demeanor in a silent question. Danny raked his eyes across the hall and then stared at Jazz for a moment, hoping sibling telepathy would kick in and she'd realize what was going on. 

Her eyes went wide and she began to pat the hem of her pants. Finding nothing, she gave Danny a quick grimace. 

Danny frowned. Even if she did have a weapon on her, it wouldn't help that much. The thermos was in the car in his suitcase. He turned toward his parents, ready to make an excuse.

"Oh, there you are, Danny," Maddie said with a smile. “Thought we lost you there for a minute. Our guide was just telling us Dr. Mozzily is actually available right now, and she wants to talk to us!"

Jack smiled. "Apparently, she's interested in a paper Jazz has been researching! Something about ghosts?" He trailed off at the end, with his face falling. His hands hovered about, obviously unsure whether it was alright to bring up ghosts in this context. 

Jazz chuckled nervously. "Oh, yeah, I've been putting together a paper on ghost envy. I’ve found a lot of people who have what could be described as envy of ghosts that drives a lot of their behaviors."

Maddie shuddered. "Ugh, I couldn't understand that at all. Who'd be envious of those horrible things?" 

Jazz looked at her mom, then gave a flat look at her father, who was obviously holding himself back. "Uh-huh…" She glanced at Danny and gave him a soft smile. He shrugged but smiled back. 

Their guide interrupted the conversation. "If you all would like to follow me, we can go see Dr. Mozzily right now?" 

"Oh, sorry!" Jazz said. "Yes, let's get going! I've been looking forward to this!" 

Danny hesitated. Should he go back to the car and get the thermos? He turned to make an excuse to leave for a moment when he remembered Ember getting her eyes clawed out by the other Lost ghost. 

He grabbed his dad's hand. "Hey, Dad?" 

Jack turned. "Danno?" He looked back at Maddie and Jazz, who had continued walking, then back to Danny. "What's up?"

Danny took a deep breath. "Do you have your ghost weapons on you?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

Jack frowned and looked back at Jazz and Maddie, who were getting farther and farther away. "Yeah, my jumpsuit has some weapons in it," he answered truthfully. 

Danny let go of his dad's hand. "Good."

Jack's eyes widened, then narrowed with razor focus. "Alright. We should catch up." 

The two of them turned and jogged up to Maddie and Jazz. Jack placed a hand on Maddie's shoulder, stopping her for just a moment. Maddie looked at him with a raised eyebrow before he moved his hand to her wrist. With a slight squeeze, a beep came from her wrist. 

Maddie gave Jack a glare. "Jack, sweetie," she said in a tone that made Danny immediately straighten up. 

"It's okay." 

Maddie and Jack turned toward Jazz, who didn't acknowledge that she'd spoken. She continued walking as the guide turned toward them. "What's okay?"

Jazz waved it off. "Oh, nothing. Come on! I'd like to see Dr. Mozzily." 

Maddie looked at Jazz, lips drawn in a thin line. She turned toward Jack. The larger man nodded and gave a significant look toward Danny, who tried not to react. Instead, he walked past the pair and checked his phone. 

Sam had responded.  _ A lost what?  _

Danny groaned. No time to explain all this now. This was urgent.  _ A Lost Ghost. She'll know what it means. _

The guide brought the group into a large room. There was a desk that was unmanned at the moment, with several doors lining the walls. In between each of the walls were shadowboxes with papers and photos pinned. The guide turned around and held out their arms. "Welcome to the psychology department!"

Jazz clapped her hands once. "This is so cool! Oh! Is that the paper on youngest child development in stressful situations?"

"Yes, it is!" a voice called out from one of the offices. A woman stepped out, honestly not much taller than Danny himself. She looked young, having one of those faces that made her look way younger than she was. Between that and her height, Danny would have thought she was a student here. 

She brushed back some hair out of her face and stuck a hand out. "Dr. Mozzily. And you must be Jazz Fenton? I'm glad you could make it!"

Danny knew Jazz well enough to know that she was trying not to squeal. "Oh! I'm so honored to finally meet you!" she said, taking the hand and shaking it a bit longer than was usual. 

If Dr. Mozzily was bothered by it, she didn't show. Instead, she laughed and said, "We could just keep saying how happy we are to meet, but how about instead we step into my office, and we can talk a bit?"

"Sure!" Jazz said brightly. 

The doctor turned and started walking toward her office, stopping by the threshold. "Again?" she muttered. 

"Again?" Jack repeated, following her eyes to a plaque by the door. The plaque looked like it had been saved from a fire. The edges were blackened and warped. The picture itself was barely in place, with a corner missing. The image was black and white, with a man smiling charmingly at the camera. 

Dr. Mozzily grabbed the plaque, her face twisting in disgust. "It's some prank the students keep doing." She snapped the plaque over her knee and threw it in the trash. 

At the surprised look of the family, she sighed. "He was a professor here in the 1960s. He got into a relationship with one of the students who was  _ also  _ a client of his. He… came to terms with their relationship and decided to end it. She came back that night and locked the two of them in this department and dosed them both in gasoline and took their lives." Dr. Mozzily walked over to a trash can, dumped the broken plaque into it, and dusted her hands. "It's some sort of prank to put a burnt plaque in here. I don't quite understand it, and campus security hasn't quite taken it seriously enough to put cameras up yet." 

Danny looked at the trash can with the plaque in it and then up to Dr. Mozzily. She adjusted the rings on her finger, twisting them back and forth, and chewed on her lip. He then looked at Jazz, who had her lips pursed in thought. His parents were busy giving each other significant looks, but no one spoke up. 

No one in the family was quite willing to bring up ghosts in the middle of Jazz's college tour yet. 

She turned back. "Sorry, that was a bit of a ramble. I’m sure that’s not why you came to see me today. Let’s start talking about what you actually came here for!" She led them into her cramped office. The room was made to feel a bit bigger by a large mirror on the back wall, but the room was packed, clearly meant for two people at most.

Dr. Mozzily’s desk took up most of the width of the room, leaving space for a bookshelf and a way for the doctor to walk around it. Next to the bookshelf was a couch that seemed fitting for a therapist's room, but across from that was a beanbag and a set of regular chairs.

Jack moved the chairs to the desk and let Maddie and Jazz sit in them. He then moved to take the couch, and Danny sat down in the bean bag and glanced about the room. 

His knee bounced as he sat. The bean bag was meant to be lounged in, but his back was stiff, ready to jump up at any moment. Jazz and Dr. Mozzily talked about the school but very quickly devolved into discussions about psychology and therapy, and it wasn't long before the two of them practically forgot about the others in the room. 

Danny tuned them out and looked about the room. There were several decorations; it was colorful. Danny couldn't help but think that both Paulina and Sam would have loved it. It was colorful and bright in a way Paulina would like, but striking and unique in a way that Sam would probably approve of. 

Danny coughed and gasped. Jazz turned immediately, stopping the conversation with the doctor. "You okay, there?" Dr. Mozzily asked. 

Danny didn't respond at first. Instead, his eyes scanned the room, stopping on the mirror. "Mom, Dad, remember mirror photography?"

Dr. Mozzily's face went as white as a sheet. Her hands went very still, and she began to turn toward the mirror behind her before she closed her eyes. Her quiet voice cut through the silence that followed. "Oh no…" 

"I see it," Jack said quietly, barely reacting at all. "It doesn't appear to be hunting." 

"I don't," Maddie said, looking toward the doorway. "Must be person-shy."

"Dead center of the doorway, honey."

"Height?"

"Five foot, female, average build," Jack said simply, glossing over the fact that the woman in the mirror was burnt. She was wearing a dress, but her blackened skin melted into the dress at various places. What skin wasn't melted into the dress was shriveled. It contoured to her bones in some areas, and in others melted away enough that you could see her bones peaking through the flesh. 

"Got it," Maddie said before pulling out a wrist ray. She fired right into the ghost's chest. The doctor launched out of her chair, stumbling backwards into the wall, sending a pile of books cascading to the floor. The ghost looked down at the blast in shock before a green portal appeared in her chest. With a scream of rage and pain, the ghost was sucked into the portal, which vanished a moment later. 

And just like that, it was gone. 

"What was that?" Danny asked. 

Maddie smiled and held up the wrist ray. "A portable version of the Fenton portal gun, I've been working on it for a while. The larger version is just too clumsy to carry around all the time." Her smile melted into a frown as she looked at it. "It only has a couple charges, though. So we can't afford to miss."

Dr. Mozzily threw her hands about in the direction of the doorway, breathing ragged. "Um, excuse me? What was that!" she shouted, too loud for the small space.

Jazz took a deep breath and adjusted her hair. "Dr. Mozzily, besides the plaque, did you encounter any other strange phenomenon here? Perhaps sudden depressive mood swings? Cold spots? Items being moved?"

The doctor opened and closed her mouth a couple times. She fell back down into her chair before finally answering. "Yes, to all of them. There is a rumor this department is haunted."

"Not anymore!" Jack cackled. 

Jazz sighed. "Yeah, uh… my family studies ghosts."

Maddie raised an eyebrow. "You didn't seem too surprised when the ghost showed up."

Dr. Mozzily shook her head, still frazzled. "No, I've seen her myself. It's… actually why Jazz's emails caught my eye." She smiled weakly. "I, uh… had looked your family up before she emailed me." 

"Well, with that out of the way, can we continue where we left off?" Jazz asked. 

* * *

Sam put down her phone, smirking. Ember growled at her from the spot next to her. "What's so funny?" 

Sam continued to play the game one-handed. "Oh, nothing, Danny was just asking about this game right now." 

Ember shoved Sam with her shoulder as she furiously smashed buttons. "I don't get it! How are you so good at this game?" 

"Practice. Boys are stupid and think because I'm a girl, I can't play," Sam said, calmly putting both hands back on the controller. "So I practice a lot." 

Ember let out a hum. "Good," she said. "I hate to hear things haven't changed that much since I died."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, that's why I'm so big on advocacy. Gotta stick it to the man." A couple furious inputs later. "And that's game!" she cackled. "Five games to nil." Sam put down her controller to recheck her phone. "We can play some co-op for a while-"

Ember grabbed the controller and shoved it back into Sam's hands. "Hell no! I ain't taking your pity!"

"That's the spirit!" Sam laughed as she responded to Danny. "Huh, apparently Danny's dad is playing this with him."

Ember blinked. "That's… kind of cool. I wish my parents had done anything like that…" she said quietly. 

Sam nodded. "Same, honestly." The phone went off in her hand again, and she frowned. She wrote a response immediately, but then she turned to Ember. "Wait a moment, Danny wanted me to tell you something."

"What?" Ember asked, turning to look at Sam. 

"I don't know. I just asked. Danny said he found something, but I think he forgot a word. He lost something?" Sam blinked and had a faceful of flaming hair in front of her face. "Whoa! Personal space!" 

"Sam! Where is Danny right now?" Ember asked hurriedly. 

Sam blinked. "Uh, you want a name or a map?"

"Map!" Ember demanded. She watched as Sam played with her phone and brought up a map. There was a dot in the center of the map, but it didn't help Ember as much as she wanted. "Where is that in relation to Amity?"

"One second," Sam said, as she touched the screen and zoomed out. "Here, this is where Amity is and-"

Ember didn't wait for her to finish. She took a deep breath, and flames overtook her. When the smoke cleared, she was a thousand feet over a college campus. She went invisible and dropped to the ground. 

She landed and took a deep breath. It wasn’t air that she breathed in. It was the emotions of the people around her. Their stress, their joy, their frustrations - so many human tastes and scents hit her at once. But underneath it all, she could taste something. It was a void of pain and anger and  _ hatred _ , all things associated with a Lost. 

Once she tasted it, she flew through the air. She didn’t bother with avoiding people; instead she used her ghostly powers to fly through everyone with intangibility, following the scent of the Lost. 

It only took a minute to find Danny walking out into a hallway. She faded into visibility in front of him. "Danny! Where is he?" she asked. 

Danny held up his hands. "Sorry, my parents already took care of her. They have a weapon that can send a ghost back into the ghost zone." He frowned. "I better watch out for that…"

"She?" Ember repeated, letting the pronoun roll off her tongue. That didn't feel right. "I still feel another ghost."

Danny blinked. "Another? I've only seen one."

Then the fire alarms went off. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in with 8 minutes left! It's been an extremely busy weekend for me. You may have noticed I added another chapter to how long this arc is going to be. (8 -> 9) This chapter started getting extremely long and I had to split it. It also got really far away from me. The character of Mozilly was a shout out to Aniura at first, but then she wound up being a much more major character in this than I thought. Whoops.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes fighting ghosts is a family affair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime) and [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) for beta reading.

The fire alarms blared. Danny winced at the volume and covered his ears. He knew they were supposed to get  _ everyone's _ attention, but still, it was practically deafening. Danny felt rather than heard the doors next to him open as his family and Dr. Mozilly came out. 

The doctor looked at Ember with wide eyes, and his parents’ eyes narrowed once they saw her. Jack rushed over to pull Danny away from Ember, and Maddie raised her miniaturized Fenton portal gun at Ember. "Ember! What are you doing here?" she shouted. 

Danny glanced at his mom before looking at Ember. The ghost didn't seem like she was even aware of what was going on. Danny jumped between the two of them. "Ember?" he shouted over the noise. When she didn't respond, he shouted again. "Ember? Ember McLain?"

"The alarms…" Ember whispered. The sound reverberated in the back of Danny's head in a buzz that made it clear. "A fire?"

Jazz spoke up, straining to make her voice heard over the alarms. "We have to get out of here!" She turned toward the professor, who was either star-struck or on the verge of full-blown panic. "Dr. Mozilly, where's the-"

Ember gasped, and flames overtook them all. When the smoke and fire had cleared, they were all outside.

"What on Earth?" Jack asked, looking about. "Did she just bring us out?" His eyes widened and he took another glance around. “Did she leave Dr. Mozzily in there?” 

Ember fell to her knees. "There's another Lost in there. He's thrilled to be free. No longer held back." She clutched the sides of her head. 

Maddie narrowed her eyes. "A lost? A lost what?" she questioned, her stern voice cutting through all the noise.

Ember shook, quaking on the ground. "He's burning. He's burning, oh god, he's going to burn them all." 

Danny knelt down next to her and opened his mouth to ask her what was going on. The moment the air touched his tongue, he was hit by a revulsive taste. He gagged and started coughing. "Oh, god, what is that smell?" 

Ember reached up and grabbed his arm. "It's him! The Lost! He's strong! He's free! He wants to burn!" Danny hissed as Ember's grip tightened. 

Maddie grabbed Danny’s arm and tried to pull Danny away. “Let go of my son! What are you even trying to say?” 

Danny blinked. "Uhh…" he began, as his brain scrambled for a believable lie. He turned toward Jazz for help, but she looked just as shell-shocked as he was. 

"Oh god," Ember whispered. Everyone snapped toward her as her voice echoed. She covered her mouth as tears formed in her eyes. "They're going to die. They're all going to burn up. Like I did…" 

Danny yanked his arm out of his mother’s hand and dropped to both knees. He grabbed Ember's hands, and pulled them away from her head. "Ember. Ember, listen to me." She focused on him with glassy eyes. "Yeah, if there's a ghost in there, and he's starting fires, people are going to die."

He looked at Jazz, when their eyes met, he gestured toward the GAV with his head. 

"But we can stop it.”

Jazz nodded and ran to GAV. 

Danny turned back to Ember. “I need your help, Ember.”

Ember bit her lip and looked at the building. "Danny, I can't go in there." 

"Ember-"

"I can't!" she hissed. 

For a moment, everyone gagged on the smell of burning flesh. Though most of them didn’t recognize the smell itself, Danny remembered what it was like to die in the portal. The sickening smell of charred meat sent bile snaking up his throat at the memory. He swallowed quickly, forcing it back down with a gag. 

Ember’s eyes widened at Danny’s reaction and forced herself to calm down. She breathed in for four seconds and then slowly let it out. The smell dissipated slightly. "I can't go in, but I can do something else…" Her form shimmered like a mirage for a second. One moment she was kneeling on the ground, and the next she was floating in the air with her guitar. 

"Like I said before, there's a lot I can do." She ran her guitar pick up the neck. The clicking sound rang in Danny's ears and resonated within him. He felt something inside him heat up and take fire. 

Maddie covered her ears. "Don't listen to her music! She can brainwash us!" she shouted, taking several steps back.

Ember growled. "That's the exact opposite of what I'm doing here!" 

The budding argument was shut down when orange rubber hit Danny in the face. "Ow! Jazz! You didn’t have to throw it so hard at me!" he said, peeling it off the offending object from his face. 

"Sorry!" Jazz said, walking up in a blue jumpsuit like her mother's. "I guess I don't know my own strength?"

Ember smirked and rolled her shoulders. "Nah, that ain't it. But you can say you're welcome." 

Jack looked at Ember for a moment before Danny's movement grabbed his attention. He worked his jaw a couple of times as he watched Danny slip the orange jumpsuit in his hands over his clothes. "Jumpsuits?" 

Jazz sighed. "I know. I just wanted one family trip without this weirdness." She pulled a silver device out of her pocket. She pushed a button on it, and chrome armor plating came out of it and covered her body. "But I guess that was a bit too much to ask."

Jack and Maddie looked back and forth at their children as Danny pulled out a baton that expanded to about his body length. Jack's jaw clicked shut. "I may not know what's going on exactly, but we're fighting ghosts, aren't we?"

Danny looked up at his parents. "There's a Lost ghost in there. It's a ghost that didn't make it into the ghost zone." 

Maddie opened her mouth to ask a million questions, but Jack put a hand on her shoulder. She whipped back at him, but he spoke clearly. “Continue, Danny.”   
  
He glanced back at Ember. "I know you two think all ghosts are evil, well…" 

Ember finished for him. "This one is. It's everything you think we are. I can feel the hate he's giving off; even from here, it reeks."

Danny turned back to his parents. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "Mom, Dad, we need to start rescuing students." 

Maddie put a hand on her hip. “You’re almost right,” she reached into a pocket and pulled out the keys to the GAV. She pressed a button and a green field came down around the vehicle, leaving Danny on one side, and Ember on the other. “You two stay in the ghost shield, you got that? Your father and I will handle it. This is  _ way  _ too dangerous, if-”!”

"We get it!" Danny snapped, pointing at the building. Already, flames were beginning to become visible on the middle floors. "Just go!"

Ember growled. "Enough talking, more heroing!" 

She slammed a power chord on her guitar that sent out a wave of fire across the ground. The fire stopped around Danny’s parents and climbed up their bodies with painless flames. His parents stopped what they were doing to look back at Ember, hesitant. 

"Go!" Ember roared at them. 

The two looked at each other and then started running. 

Danny blinked as his parents crossed the distance in seconds, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. "Whoa."

Jazz clapped and bounced in place. "Oh! It's bardic inspiration!" Jazz exclaimed brightly.

Danny turned toward her, raising an eyebrow. "Huh?"

Jazz coughed and blushed. "Nothing, this just reminded me of game night."

Danny rolled his eyes and stepped out of the ghost shield. “One small step for Fenton, one massive grounding coming soon.”

"Do you two always talk this much when people are in danger?" Ember growled as she continued playing a song. Flames danced along the ground and crept up Danny and then Jazz when she also came out of the shield as well. "I can't keep this up forever, you know. You should be stronger and faster than usual, I can probably keep this up for the next ten minutes. Now  _ go! _ "

Aware of the time limit, Danny turned toward the burning building and started running. He definitely wasn't as fast as he could be in ghost form, but this was a definite improvement over his human self. 

Jazz followed right next to him. "So, what's the plan?" she asked. The two of them didn't bother bringing up the fact they just crossed over a hundred feet in seconds. That wasn't the strangest thing they've dealt with.

Danny opened the door on the first floor. "Same thing we normally do. Do hero work until we find the ghost that's causing a problem." He paused long enough to prop it open so that people could flee easily. 

Jazz followed his example. "Are we not trying to find the ghost?" she wondered. She squeezed something, and the weapons in her suit let out a high-pitched hum. 

"I just told Mom and Dad that we were to get them moving. I don't know where the ghost is at all. Just around here," he said simply, jogging into the entranceway. The two of them glanced at fires beginning to smolder on the floor. "You grab the thermos from the van too?" Danny asked, hitting the sprinkler system and triggering it manually. 

Jazz rolled her eyes as some college students ran out past them. They gave the two of them strange looks as they ran -- either because of their apparent odd fashion choices or the flames from Ember's powers lingering on them -- but didn't bother to stop them. "Of course, right here," she said, holding it up.

"Good, give it to me," Danny said quickly as he snatched it out of her hands.

Jazz scoffed as Danny clipped it to his belt as they leaped up flights of stairs. "Why do _ you  _ get to carry it?"

Danny gave her a look that made her flinch. "Cause you're a terrible shot." He continued moving once she got the point as they got to the 3rd floor. The door was closed, but through a glass pane, they could see some panicked people trying to open the door. 

Danny grabbed the door handle and tried to pry it open. "It's locked shut!" He shouted as he started trying to break off the doorknob by kicking it. 

More cheerfully than would be deemed proper for the situation, Jazz shouted, "I have a lockpick!" 

"Jazz, we don't- WHOA!" Danny was cut off as Jazz blasted the door with the Fenton Peeler. She kept it trained on the door as it split the door into a million splinters. Not even three seconds later, the door was gone. 

"Move it, people! This is not a fire drill!" she shouted. As Jazz indicated the stairs behind them, the students all ran down the stairs.

Danny laughed as he patted himself down to make sure he hadn't gotten hit. "Could have warned a guy!" 

"I did," Jazz said. She turned toward him and put her hands on her hips. "Shouldn't you go ghost?" 

Danny chewed his lip. "I could, but… Mom and Dad will know then."

Jazz frowned. "Danny…" She said, slightly disappointed, but a clear undercurrent of understanding was prevalent. 

"We just need to find the ghost," Danny said firmly, marching into the third floor.

Jazz followed him. She didn't try to force the conversation. Instead, she asked, "And how do we do that?"

Danny sighed and ran his hand through his hair tiredly. "Jazz, that's the thing. I never find the ghost. The ghost usually finds--"

Suddenly the doorway went up in flames behind them.   
  
“... me,” Danny finished as his shoulders slumped.    
  


* * *

"So," Jack began after shoving his way through a brick wall. Normally he had to prime the wall to be knocked through with a blaster, but whatever Ember was doing to him, it made knocking their way through the building way easier.   


"Not now, sweetie," Maddie began, pointing an ecto foamer at flames bursting from the floor. "Not while we're working." She turned toward the students that had been trapped by the fire. "MOVE IT, PEOPLE!" she shouted, "The building is ON FIRE!"

The students ran out into the hallway and toward the suspiciously Jack Fenton-sized hole on the outside wall. Maddie shouted after them. "Move in an orderly fashion!" 

Jack dusted off the remains of the brick on him. "Well, I don't want to talk about it in front of Jazz later."

Maddie sighed. "Oh, alright, but first...." She pulled out a device. "It seems like most of the humans are gone now. I'm seeing our life signs, and three more about twenty feet that way!"

"On it, Mads!" Jack said, shoulder-checking the wall she pointed at. He smashed his way through and glanced about the room. His eyes fell upon a janitor's closet, the handle of the door aflame in a ghostly fire. He marched over and tore the door off the hinges. "Ah, there you are!" He grabbed the college students and tossed them on his shoulders. The three of them let out indignant squawks, but were too exhausted to do much else. 

Maddie poked her head through the open hole. "I think that's the last of them!"

"Jazz and Danny?" 

The answer was immediate. "Not in the building," she stated, looking at her device. "Hopefully, they're clear of whatever ghost is causing these flames."

Jack let out a hum as he carried the three students, two on his shoulders and one under his arm. Maddie glanced up at him, and he desperately kept his gaze forward. 

"Jack…" Maddie said warningly. 

"Well…" he said slowly, "I think we know why Danny's grades are bad now."

Maddie stopped. "What are you saying?" Her voice was carefully neutral.

Jack continued walking but turned around and threw his arms out. The students he was carrying sputtered as he gesticulated. "Didn’t you see him handling the Fenton multi-purpose anti-ghost stick? He’s a pro! He’s hunting ghosts at school!"

Maddie started walking again. Casually dismissing the idea with a wave of her hands. "That's impossible. Danny doesn't have any ecto weapons." 

"Maddie!" Jack said, with a bounce in his step. "They brought jumpsuits! Did you know they had a set?"

"Danny has his white one," she began, trailing off as she realized that was not what Danny brought.

Jack pointed out what she was thinking. "Exactly! And what color is this one? Orange!" 

Maddie frowned. "If that is the case, why didn't he tell us?" she demanded angrily.

Jack smiled brightly. "That's what I figured out! I think I know why!"

Maddie rolled her eyes behind her goggles. "Well, are you going to share?"

"Danny is working with Phantom!" 

"He's WHAT?"

* * *

Jazz groaned from her spot on the ground. She reached up to wipe at her forehead, but her metal-coated hand collided with her faceplate. "Danny,  _ please  _ tell me you have a plan?"

Danny lifted his head to look at her. "Jazz, do I look like I have a plan?" he responded as dirt fell out of his hair.

The two of them rolled out of the way when a gout of flame spurted up between them. The two of them came up to their knees and looked at the ghost. He was standing fifteen feet away from them. 

Wearing a dark red button-down cardigan over a white collared shirt and brown tie that matched his belt and shoes. You'd think he walked right out of the 1960s... if it weren't for the fact that the flesh over his eyes had melted into a horrific burned mask, and his mouth went literally from ear to ear. 

"Can't you get him with the thermos?" Jazz groaned.

"Didn't you see me try?" Danny said, raising an eyebrow. "He's on guard for it." 

"DUCK!" Jazz shouted, and Danny threw himself to the ground. Something whizzed by his head, and he rolled over. The ghost had appeared behind him and was now wielding a golf club. The ghost raised the club to smash it into Danny's head, but Danny brought up his staff, blocking the blow. 

The ghost smiled. Sharpened teeth glistened as embers and ash came from his mouth. "Come on, sport, I'm just trying to take the pain away."

"That is not a valid coping mechanism!" Jazz shouted as she fired off a shot. Before the blast made contact with the ghost, it vanished in wisps of ash. 

Danny sprung off the ground and looked around. "I really hope Ember never gets this good at teleporting." 

Jazz frowned. "How are we going to stop him?" She glanced back at Danny. "We've been keeping up, but…" Her gaze shifted to the wisps of blue flames that were fluttering on Danny's shoulders. They were almost gone. 

Danny blinked. "I have a plan," he said quickly. 

Jazz turned. "Why did that sound bad?"

Danny turned toward her. "Uh, well, he only seems to stick around when he's attack-" His eyes went wide and grabbed her and threw her behind him. 

Jazz turned and opened fire as a golf club passed through where she was a second ago. Once again, the ghost vanished before he could get hit. She scanned the area around her. "You were saying?"

"He only sticks around when he's attacking," Danny explained quickly. "So we have to hit him while he's hitting us."

Jazz gestured to where he had been a second ago. "He's pretty quick on the draw."

Danny turned toward Jazz. "No, I mean when he's actually hitting us." He tossed her the thermos.

Jazz scrambled to catch the thermos. "Danny!" she exclaimed. Danny jumped over her and brought his staff down into the ghost as he tried to attack her while she was distracted. 

"I'm gonna let him hit me. You have to get him while he's in contact with me." 

"And then what, champ?" 

Danny gasped and turned. The ghost they were fighting was in between the two of them. He stroked his chin with one hand as he leaned on the golf club. "Gotta say, friend, not a smart idea to talk about your plans out loud. That's what got me killed." He punctuated his statement with a snap of his fingers. Flames burst out of the ground and lobbed themselves at Danny. 

Danny dove out of the way, and the ghost teleported multiple times to keep himself between him and Jazz. The ghost smiled and jabbed a finger at Danny. "You and the dame over here are being pretty careful where you're swinging. You two would make a great team cutting a rug, ya know? But she can't shoot you, can she?" 

Danny growled. "Yeah, but I can still hit you!" he said, swinging his staff through him. 

The next thing he knew, he was being choked. He reached up and grabbed the golf club that was being pressed into his throat. "Nah, you really can't. You got moxie, but come on. You gotta try better than that."

The ghost jerked Danny about. The ghost chuckled as Jazz lowered her gun. "Nice try, doll," he said, addressing Jazz. "But you trust your aim?" 

"Danny, can't you do anything?" she demanded. Danny knew by her glare that she was expecting him to go ghost already. 

Danny frowned. He didn't want to, but it was beginning to look like he'd have to. Giving up his secret wasn't ideal, but at this point, more questions might be raised than not. 

Danny's grip tightened on the golf club as calm overtook him. He looked Jazz in the eye, and her gaze softened. For better or worse, by the end of today, his parents would probably know that he was Phantom. 

His chest ached, and he breathed. 

The ghost screamed in pain and released Danny. Danny dove next to Jazz and turned to look at the ghost. Black ichor dripped from wounds on his palms. 

“Danny?” Jazz asked, “What was that?”

Danny risked a glance at Jazz. “What was what?”

“His club!” 

Danny looked down at the golf club on the ground, several sharp pointed icicles jutted out from it.

“ _ You! _ ” The ghost shouted, angrily. “ _ What’d you do? _ ” 

Danny turned back toward the ghost, who tensed, waiting for Jazz or Danny to attack.

The ghost let out a gasp as something struck it’s back from behind. He looked down as a glowing green portal formed in his chest. "No! No! Nononnonono-" He shouted, clawing at the portal even as he was sucked into it. 

Danny and Jazz looked up at their parents. Maddie blew some smoke off her portal gun, even as it dimmed when it lost power. Jack waved his free arm. "Heya, kids! You alright?"

"Just fine, Dad!" Danny shouted casually, waving back. 

Maddie ran over to her children, stumbling over the rumble and enveloping them in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re alright!  _ Never  _ scare me like that again!” She pulled back. “AND YOU TWO ARE SO GROUNDED!”

“Now, now, Maddie,” Jack said, pulling her away. “They did good!”

"Are you?" Jazz mouthed to Danny.

"Grounded? I hope not!" Danny quipped, not bothering to lower his voice. 

“You just might be!” Maddie said sternly, before Jack got her attention again.

Jazz rolled her eyes, but a smirk broke out on her face anyways. "No, you dork. Are you okay?"

"Yeah… why?”

Jazz gave a pointed look at the metal shards on the ground – the remains of the Lost’s golf club. 

Danny stared at it, eyes widening in understanding. Frost shimmered on the surface. Frost that came from  _ him _ . 

* * *

Hours later -- after explaining to the firefighters and police officers that it was an attack from a ghost, and no, they weren't crazy,  _ and _ also a short little duck around a corner to thank Ember, who asked him not to mention it,  _ ever _ \-- The Fentons all crawled into the GAV. The car was silent for a moment as each of them decompressed and let out a sigh. 

Jack turned the ignition. "Well, hopefully, they won't remember that the ghost attack was the same day you showed up when you apply."

Jazz winced. "Yeah…" She shot Danny a look of apology, and he winced as well. The two of them braced for the barrage of questions that were sure to come. 

They didn't.

"Maddie, I turn left on at the stoplight, right?"

"Right."

"Oh," Jack said, switching the turn signal.

"No, you were right. It's a left."

"Ah!" 

Danny and Jazz shared a look. "Uhhh… Mom? Dad?"

Jack took a deep breath. "We have questions," he stated firmly, "but they can wait till we are NOT on a family vacation." 

Maddie turned in her seat. "I'm just glad you’re alright!!" 

Jack leaned over his shoulder, shooting his kids a triumphant smile. “And that we know we can trust you two in a ghost attack!”

Maddie softly smacked her husband’s arm. “Jack!” 

Jack pouted. "Right, sorry…”

Danny and Jazz turned toward each other. Jazz was smiling, but her eyes were filled with tears. "Hey, Dad, when we get back to the hotel, can we play games together?"

"Of course, Jazzercess!"

Danny chuckled, but inwardly his stomach twisted. He pulled out his phone and texted everyone. He wasn't sure what questions his parents would ask, and he had enough lies to keep straight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may have noticed that I didn't update last week. You may also have noticed that it was Valentine's Day. 
> 
> I'm married. 
> 
> I chose life.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so, the family returns home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to [aniura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aniura) and [HeroineOfTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeroineofTime/) for beta reading and editing this!

Danny refused to tear his eyes away from the window as his parents started driving into Amity Park. He had to work hard to not squeeze his phone too tightly. Jazz, Sam, and Tucker all helped him come up with plausible answers to any questions his parents might ask, but everyone knew Danny wasn’t a great liar. 

Way too soon, they pulled into their driveway. The car turned off, sending the enclosed space into complete silence. A sharp series of clicks rang out when each person undid their seatbelt, followed soon by the doors opening. 

Jack stretched. “Ahhh, feels good to be back home, doesn’t it, kids?”

Danny rubbed the back of his head. “Sure thing, Dad.”

Jack patted him on the back heartily, his size and strength making it more like he was slapping him instead. “Cheer up, son! Now you can go see your friends!”

Danny blinked and looked up at his dad. “You mean, like right now?”

Jack smiled. “Sure!” He reached into the GAV and pulled out a baton. “But here, take a  Fenton multi-purpose anti-ghost stick with you.” 

Danny looked at the weapon in his hands then up to his dad. Jack winked at him and put a finger up to his lips. “Just do me a favor, don’t let your mother know, alright? She’s a worrier.”

Danny slipped the weapon into his pocket and ran out the door. “Thanks, Dad!”

He ran down the street and into an alley. Once he was out of sight and knew that no one was looking, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and transformed. He took to the air as he called Sam. The phone didn’t even ring once when Sam picked it up. “Danny? Everything okay?”

The wind whipped through Danny’s hair. He smiled. “You won’t believe what just happened. Is Tucker there?”

* * *

Johnny jumped as Ember kicked in his door. “Aw, jeez, Em!” He complained as he sat back down. “You trying to give us heart attacks?”

Ember didn’t respond. Instead, she walked over to his couch and face-planted on it. She let out a low groaning moan that made him wince. 

“Kitty!” Johnny shouted, panic rising at the same time as he stood up. “Ember’s having issues!”

Kitty walked over, taking off her apron and throwing it over Johnny’s bike. He sighed as he knew that whatever cute idea she had come up with was now on the back burner and probably would be burnt later. He raised an eyebrow at Shadow, who shook his head aggressively.

Yeah, he didn’t blame Shadow. 

Kitty wasn’t a good cook even when she was paying attention to the food. A dog wouldn’t eat Kitty’s burnt cooking, and Shadow was smarter than most dogs. He’d have to man up later and eat it. He didn’t get the excuse that he wasn’t hungry, since they didn’t need to eat anymore, it was just something they did for fun. 

“What’s going on, Ember?” Kitty asked. 

Ember turned her head so she could look at the two of them. “Phantom doesn’t know  _ anything  _ about being a ghost.”

Johnny scoffed. “His parents are ghost hunters. I think he knows enough.”

“A few days ago, Sam apologized for asking me to stop pursuing my obsession.”

Johnny and Kitty shared a look with each other. “Ember,” Kitty began slowly. “Were you?”

“No, at least… I don’t think I was?” Ember said, rolling over. “I was doing concerts and stuff, but… you know…” 

Johnny and Kitty let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding. Kitty walked over and sat next to Ember and grabbed her hand. “Okay… just let us know if you start, alright?”

Ember squeezed Kitty’s hand. “That’s the thing! Sam thought I was and  _ apologized _ for it!” 

Johnny scoffed. “Isn’t that his little human friend, though?”

Ember waved her other hand through the air. “Phantom and I ran into three Lost during these weeks; Danny had  _ no _ idea what they were.” 

Kitty raised an eyebrow at Ember’s use of Phantom’s first name but before she could go any further, Johnny spoke up. “Wait, if he doesn’t know what the Lost are-” 

“Yeah, he never wandered,” Ember cut off, “and I think he actually tasted emotion for the first time a few days ago.” 

The room was quiet for a moment. Johnny let out a deep sigh and stood up. He walked over to the fridge, pulled out two bottles - one root beer and one ale - and walked over to the women. He gave the root beer to Ember and the beer to Kitty. 

“Where are you going?” Kitty asked.

“It  _ sucked  _ when we first got here,” Johnny explained as he grabbed a helmet. He tied the helmet to the back seat and looked at Kitty. “I’m gonna talk with Phantom. 

* * *

Danny gasped and hit the pause button on his game. He groaned as he got up and took a look around. There was an odd glow coming from the outside that lit up his window just slightly. He sighed. “Just one day, not even one…” He trailed off when he saw Johnny outside with his bike. 

He was turning the helmet over in his hands and inspecting it. 

Johnny must have sensed him looking. He met Danny’s eyes and waved at him to join. Danny frowned, phased through his wall, and landed in front of Johnny. “You really shouldn’t be here.”

Johnny shrugged. “Hey man, I know your parents are out right now. I’m not that big of an idiot.”

“He means me,” Jazz said, opening the door with a sudden burst. Johnny paled as Jazz marched forward, holding the bazooka that she kept in her closet nowadays. Jazz stopped fifteen feet away from Johnny. Danny slowly and carefully tried to get out of the line of fire. 

“Oh, uh…” Johnny rubbed the back of his head. “I suppose ‘sorry’ isn’t going to cut it?”

“It’s a start,” Jazz stated. “If you had said it before, I probably wouldn’t have taken it. You  _ did  _ try to kill me, you know.”

Johnny waivered. “Uh… it wouldn’t have-”

“I’d shut up if I were you.”

“Shutting up.”

Jazz took a deep breath and turned around. “I accept your apology.”

“What?” Both Johnny and Danny shouted.

Jazz took a few more steps away before turning around. “I spent some time thinking about it, and I realized that if it required me to kill you to save Danny…” she lifted the bazooka. “I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Johnny gulped. “Message received.”

Jazz walked back inside. “I can’t be mad at you for something I’d do myself, but… just remember this conversation.” 

The door shut with a final click. Johnny turned toward Danny, whose mouth was agape. “Your sister is scary, man…”

Danny shook his head. “Yet you still dated her.”

Johnny laughed. “Yeah, true.” He tossed Danny the helmet. “Come on, hop on.”

“Uh… what are you doing?”

Johnny started the motorcycle. “Ember got back, said there’s some stuff you didn’t know.”

Danny blinked. “Like what? And why am I riding with you?”

Johnny indicated the seat. “Like I said, there are things you don’t know, and I’m talking about Lost ghosts.”

Danny put on the helmet and sat behind Johnny, wrapping his arms around him. Johnny pulled on the throttle and started going West out of town. It didn’t take long going at speeds that made Danny think the helmet was pointless to get out of town. At this point, they were far enough that Danny didn’t recognize the area at all.

“Where are we going?” Danny asked. 

“On a trip, duh!” Johnny laughed. 

“How long is this going to take?” Danny asked, beginning to get worried. 

“Less than you’d think!” Johnny responded.

“That’s not an answer!”

Johnny turned and looked at Danny. Danny wondered if his cavalier attitude to road safety was an after-death thing or the cause of it. “Dude, what time is it?”

“Nine thirty-ish?” 

Johnny indicated for Danny to look forward. Danny looked forward and frowned as he saw the sky brightening ahead of him. 

“Does the word liminal mean anything to you?” Johnny asked. The word sounded weird coming from Johnny. In the same way, it could be strange to hear your English teacher talking about video games. 

Danny hesitated. “Uhhh… I feel like it was on a test at some point?”

Johnny nodded. “Yeah, didn’t mean anything to me either before I got to the ghost zone.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Instead of answering, Johnny explained, “Liminal means between states, or on the boundary. I feel like some fancy-ass poet or something would talk about you being even more liminal than I, but…” Johnny trailed off with a shrug. “Anyways, being on a road trip is kind of a liminal thing in and of itself.”

“I really don’t get what you’re getting at here.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Come on, man, look, I know you’re not good at school anymore, but what direction does the sun rise?”

Danny blinked and looked up westward at the rising sun. “Oh...” 

Danny wasn’t sure if it took hours or minutes, but when the sun had cleared the horizon, Johnny pulled into a diner on the side of the road. The place looked old, like straight out of the fifties. Though, fortunately for Danny’s sanity, the cars in the lot looked modern. 

Danny tried to get a sense of time as he walked into the dinner but was thwarted when a waitress immediately ushered him to a table in the back corner. She didn’t hand them menus. Instead, she just grabbed a pot of coffee and poured two mugs. “Don’t usually see you in here with guys, Johnny, branching out?”

Johnny laughed. “Nothing like that. I’m on the level today.”

She let out a hum that sounded like she didn’t believe him. “I’ll get you your usual.” 

Danny looked around. “Where are we?” 

Johnny shrugged and smiled. “Best dinner in Tennessee.” 

Danny blinked. “We weren’t on the road that long!”

Johnny leaned back. “Yeah, Ember mentioned you didn’t get all the stuff we’ve dealt with. I guess it hasn’t clicked yet.”

Danny frowned then looked outside. “Is travel a ghost power for you?”

“Yup,” Johnny said, leaning forward. “Bit harder to pull off though, some of us have conditions on our ghost powers.”

“Like Ember and her concerts.” 

“Bingo,” Johnny said approvingly. “Her best powers require an audience. Me? Have to be traveling.”

“So your obsession is traveling, then? That makes sense, I mean, you love your bike, right?”

Johnny sighed, deep and heavy. “No, kid, you’ve…” He sighed again. “That’s not it. Obsessions are totally different from ghost powers. They can intersect sometimes, sure, but… it’s different. That’s what I’m tryna do here.”

Danny focused on Johnny. “ _ What  _ are you trying to do here?”

Johnny rubbed at his nose and averted his eyes. “Ah, well…” he paused as the waitress dropped off two plates of waffles, hash browns, and three gigantic links of sausage. Tucker would have been ecstatic Johnny grabbed a bottle of Tabasco sauce and smothered his hash browns with them. Johnny pushed the bottle over to Danny. “Sam said something the other day to Ember that got us thinking...”

“About what?” He asked warily. Danny took a bite of his waffle and hesitated; he now understood why Johnny picked this place. 

Johnny laughed at Danny’s face. “Worth coming back from the dead for, right?” He chuckled a few times before sobering. “Yeah, this was my favorite stop when I was alive.” He looked out the window. “I was taking Kitty here when…” 

Danny followed his gaze outside and saw a bottle with several flowers in it near a light post. The fork in Danny’s hand dropped. 

“Don’t worry about it, kiddo, it was a long time ago,” Johnny said, shoveling some of his hashbrowns in his mouth. “The thing is, when I died, I regretted something, I mean, that shouldn’t be a surprise but,” he jabbed his fork in Danny’s direction. “I don’t know if you did.” 

Danny opened his mouth to respond, but Johnny continued. “Anyways, point being, Sam apologized to Ember about tearing Ember away from her concerts. She thought Ember was fulfilling her obsession.” 

Danny’s brow furrowed. “She wasn’t?”

Johnny shook his head. “Probably not, honestly? We try not to think about our obsessions.” 

Danny leaned back. “Wait, isn’t the point of an obsession that you like… are obsessed with it?”

Johnny mirrored Danny’s position. “Yeah… well…” he scratched at his cheek before continuing. “Look at it like this. You drink water to stay alive right? Well, we have to avoid our obsessions in order to stick around.” 

Danny blinked. “Wait, what? I thought-”

“You thought the obsession was what was keeping us around, and yeah, it is, but…” Johnny sighed. “It’s like a balancing act, man, too much, and we get fulfilled and pass on, not enough and well… you’ve seen the Lost.”

“Don’t you  _ want _ to pass on?” Danny asked without thinking. Johnny’s head snapped toward him, and Danny covered his mouth. “I mean…”

Johnny’s gaze softened. “Nah, don’t worry about it. The whole reason I dragged you out here was so you could ask shit like that…”

Johnny played with the food on his plate. “Passing on is like… dying a second time. At least we’re pretty sure. It’s terrifying. But... we’re driven to. It’s this itch that needs to be scratched, but you know you shouldn’t. If you scratch it, you die, but if you don’t, well… it becomes this thing that grows and grows until it’s all you can think about. You become so broken that you can’t fulfill it anymore.” Johnny shrugged.

Johnny stabbed his waffle with his fork violently, making Danny jump. “Obsessions aren’t a thing to be taken lightly. It’s  _ painful  _ to deal with.” He looked Danny in the eyes and continued. “Like, I don’t know what it’s like for you, you’re living, so maybe you  _ don’t  _ have one, or maybe it’s just not as important for you. But for the rest of us? Obsessions are how we  _ die  _ again. And dying was the  _ worst  _ thing to happen to us, bar none.”

Johnny rubbed his chest and winced. “Listen kid, someone says they’d rather die? Deck em. Every single ghost who’s not a complete asshole will agree.”

“So what about Skulker? He keeps saying he wants my pelt.”

“I said those that aren’t a complete asshole.”   
“Point taken.”

“ _ Anyways, _ ” Johnny said, rolling his hand about. “Most of us don’t even  _ think  _ about what our obsessions are. If we know, we have a compulsive urge to fulfill them. Ember doesn’t actually know what hers is, I don’t think Walker does, but I haven’t talked to him that much. We tend to find out when we get too close to scratching it.” 

He let out a sigh. “You asked if my obsession was traveling, it’s not. That’s just what my powers are… my death…” He shuddered and shook his head. “My obsession is Kitty.” A dopey smile spread across his face. “I wanted to spend my life with her, traveling everywhere, seeing everything, and then…” He trailed off as his smile fell. “I got us killed.” 

Danny looked down at his plate. He had eaten a surprising amount listening to Johnny talk. “I’m…”

“Save it, kiddo,” Johnny said quickly, “I killed her, and nothing will ever change that…” Johnny put his head on his hand and pushed his waffles around. “Anyways, the point being, my obsession is a healthy and happy relationship with Kitty…”

Danny blinked. “Wait… so when you’re cheating on her…”

“I’m trying to keep us away from our obsessions, yeah,” Johnny said with a shrug. “If I don’t, or she doesn’t, well… we die.” 

“That sounds like hell.” Danny breathed out.

“That’s cause it is,” Johnny said, taking a bite of his waffle. “We’re ghosts. That’s kinda the deal, kid.”

Danny blinked. “And if you ever get too happy, you die… again...”

“Yup, death’s a bitch ain’t it?” 

* * *

The next day, Mr. Lancer looked up from his coffee. It was too bitter – he’d had to stop at a different coffee shop today. Skulker and the Red Huntress had trashed his usual stop a few days ago. He sipped and grimaced at the taste as he saw Phantom flying through the air. 

“Huh,” he mused to himself. “Phantom is back the same day the Fenton’s are. Curious.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This delay brought to you by Hades! Sorry bout that! But we're finished with this arc! 
> 
> I went into a bit more world-building with this arc. I kept wanting to add more to this arc but having trouble fitting it in. The next arc will start coming in May which I'm extremely excited about since it'll have a LOT more focus on Ember. I'm going to be participating in several writing contests and projects this month and next. So there'll still be a lot more fics coming out, just probably not part of Three Note Chords.


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